I come to this place
with loud voices and noises
and write
and shake out the loose garments
of old judgments
and hang them on the line
for all those who also hang theirs out
to see.
Last night
the voices and the noises stilled
if only those in my head
and I watched
as if an outsider or a newcomer
to this place
shifted my perception
with deliberate purpose.
My diary is silent.
Bored without the flowery analytics
of interpretive dance,
moving and shaping
my perspective
or your image
in my mind,
its empty pages lie in wait
and crowd with words
that do not speak
the volumes that my heart beats out
in time
to the cadent rhythm of your lyrical touch.
Each time I hear your voice
my breath spreads across my chest
my soul settles into my body
a little more
each note
that connects me
to that sound
that earthy, solid sound
That whole and round and bass-ic tone.
You do not complete me.
I know this theatre of broken promise land,
have broken enough of them
to know you
cannot fill the spaces I carve out
of my own existence.
But when I leave your side,
after you have reached inside that pain
and tenderly pressed against it
warming it with acknowledgement,
I can accept that Grace,
the Divine Love
which fills me as no other love can
the surface of my skin expands with desire
to touch and reflect
and Love everything I encounter:
the sarcastic barista at the cafe,
the shrieking child in the stroller
on the sidewalk,
the awkward teenager on the bicycle
careening toward me on the street,
the birds
the cars
the traffic lights...
as I make my way back to you
to share
this gift with you
as if it were somehow new
something I discovered
in the fifth pocket of my jeans
fresh out of the dryer.
An indelible Love
that somehow survived
the laundering of pain.
As though you hadn’t been there
