Until No Dross Remains

Learning to lean into loss
Let me fall and softly land
Upon a deep pillow of grace
Let no lesson yet remain
Let the free fall be enough
Catch me with gentle wonder and
Delight.

Leaving behind every ruse 
Let my life this witness bear
Upon dark acceptance of grief
Let sorrow ebb and end
Let my lasting tribute be
Hands cupping forgiveness like a
Chalice.

Worlds Away

All night long I waited for your arms
awoke to discover they were
not around me
you were far away
facing east and turning.
I felt it when you changed
some deeper sadness
a rejection of our dream
a closing heart
facing east and turning.
You had already made your mind up
nothing to discuss
arms never again
to draw me
closer to your heart.

All week long I waited for your return
awoke every morning
looking for your presence
hoping you had drawn me
closer to your heart.
I vowed to never hold you
swore I'd let you go
promised not to struggle
even if it meant you were
facing east and turning.
If only you had told me
there would be no other
night your arms would draw me
closer to your heart.  You left
facing east and turning.

Never Mind Your Friends

Remember I said
eye hath not seen
ear hath not heard
and yet you did not
trust your heart?

Remember you promised
this is who I am
this is what I do
and yet you did not
tell the truth?

Fickle heart,
bet you believed
everything you said,
bet you hoped
this time
it was true.

One of these lifetimes
if you are lucky
you will discover
how to awaken the
warrior of love.

For Lovers Only

When we lay there
you stretched out and long,
me, pulling back
cautious with hope and daring,
two ghosts of someone
else's idea of love
swept through the
French countryside in
black and white.
You were a dream I had had.
Then you showed me
what your eye had seen,
when you, alone,
walked through city streets
before we'd ever met. You said
you'd covered yourself with
music and thus I conjured you
at once, quiet and apart,
and loved you more.
Projected out, many years
hence, there you were
before your death,
a very old man and
there I was
kneeling at your
side, watching you go.
I created the moment. All
your photographs appeared
in procession and swept
one by one through
your memory where you were
once again the one who
stood, mute with beauty,
ears full of sound, far from death.
Every tenderness of life
belonged to you.  Never go,
my heart breaking for a
future loss.

Instinct

If you should ever go,
tell me today how
you have planned my days ahead.

If you go elsewhere, love,
fasten something to
my heart to keep it beating.

If one day you must leave,
unfurl the heavens
grant me a crack of escape.

Death, call me swiftly,
carry me away
let the earth see me no more.

If you must go away,
love, bury the knife 
plunge it deeply into me.

Say my foolish heart had
triumphed over loss
until only love remained.