Going Through Life

Closing In

The shadows of things
start closing in when day falls
growing like weed reaching out
longer and longer
about to touch the horizon,
and burst from their own length;

but no: they dissolve themselves sideways; into the black of night; bursting of breadth instead.

The shadows of people aging
also grow longer and longer;
losing contrast with the ground
until it seems to absorb them;

but just then: they intersect the horizon; surround the globe; complete the circle; live in tomorrow.

Faith

(by Czesław Miłosz)
(dedicated to 'my friend in the East')

Faith is in you whenever you look
At a dewdrop or a floating leaf
And know that they are because they have to be.
Even if you close your eyes and dream up things
The world will remain as it has always been
And the leaf will be carried by the waters of the river.

You have faith also when you hurt your foot
Against a sharp rock and you know
That rocks are here to hurt our feet.
See the long shadow that is cast by the tree?
We and the flowers throw shadows on the earth.
What has no shadow has no strength to live.

Hope

(by Czesław Miłosz)
(dedicated to 'my friend in the West')

Hope is with you when you believe
The earth is not a dream but living flesh,
That sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,
That all things you have ever seen here
Are like a garden looked at from a gate.

You cannot enter. But you're sure it's there.
Could we but look more clearly and wisely
We might discover somewhere in the garden
A strange new flower and an unnamed star.

Some people say we should not trust our eyes,
That there is nothing, just a seeming,
These are the ones who have no hope.
They think that the moment we turn away,
The world, behind our backs, ceases to exist,
As if snatched up by the hands of thieves.

Reverent hesitating gestures

Reverent hesitating gestures
of delicate fragility play on our mutual fingertips.
Reciprocal gravity drives unending inward spiral
Into unlikely intersection of whole persons.

Attrition is the time and place of our union,
The present instance of our love.
Touching is symmetrical, shared
A single act of touching – two in one touch.

Looking in each other’s eyes
                                       Is touching
As the surface of your thought becomes
The surface of my thought

Kissing is a special form of touching
Where we renounce speaking –
Bodies become Words
And speak themselves

As the surface of your silence becomes
The surface of my silence

---

Untouching is done carefully,
With solemn pause.

we incorrectly feel small and     lost

The bustle in a house

(by Emily Dickinson)

The bustle in a house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon earth, –

The sweeping up the heart,
And putting love away
We shall not want to use again
Until eternity.

Today your body sparkles

Today your body sparkles
With a thousand languages
Some archaic and mysterious
Some disturbing and new

Here your body irradiates
With a thousand atoms
All pregnant with bearing
The wholeness of you

Always your body listens
With a thousand gestures
Some giving, some taking
Bonding in two

Together your body blossoms
With a thousand gifts
And an ocean of glory
Seems to shine through

Prima Nocte

I discover senses can be just as inebriating
when they come alive
As when they close down.

How can you be so full of meaning while asleep?
How can I have such a strong conscience of you
when you have none of me?

I discover your nights are so beautiful.
How many nights you must have spent like this,
beautifully, unwatched.

How well you fit inside yourself just now,
While I am overwhelmed by the responsibility
Of tending the full weight of ‘us’ for the moment.

But let me just wait for your next
delayed, shallow, beautiful breath.
Syncopated, innocent, all-filling absence.

Patient synonym of life.

(   delicate balance of promise fulfilled

And from now on perpetually in-the-making

‘I’ll love you forever’, I lied

‘I’ll love you forever’, I lied,
(unintentionally of course)
‘You are my everything’, I lied again,
but it was true at the moment,
‘I love you too’, you lied back,
and damn it if I didn’t believe you,
‘We’ll never be apart’, we lied,
and today is never,
‘This is the best day of my life’, I lied,
in fact it was just the day we lied together.

somewhere i have never travelled

(by e. e. cummings)

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

It is as silly as love

It is as silly as love
that I should be hurt
by seeing a picture of you but
with your back turned

as if

Fatal as time love
will not stay the same
and many times a love-that-has-grown
will appear diminished;

as if

as gentle as that breeze
I’d swear there’s a window-open-somewhere -
pregnant like a hope delayed
the answer is held until I ask fewer questions -

if I turned around now I think
I would be surprised not to see the past.

I never knew space could hurt

I never knew space could hurt
until I found even touching
there was too much distance from me to you-

And time walks across my heart,
coming and going with that
precise patience it keeps all for itself-

Under the naïf look of a smile
Love-Gently-Bleeds
from the wounds of this soul pierced by your otherness-

To dissolve in living red the mere
pleasing of the senses
that ever-urgently warned me of your beauty
(which they never knew)

and drench away in thick flowing substance
that simple wishing you well
which safely keeps you for contemplation

Love bleeds from pains easily forgotten
as I give myself to you

There goes another piece of me but

There goes another piece of me but
go merrily, piece, you were spent

on love

so I guess it’s ok as long as - well
ok, go on,

take some more

I sing the abyss in my soul

I sing the abyss in my soul
and chant the depth of the division
and the black hole that sucks being
this darkness, nonsense, coldness, nothing

Firmly set in the heart of me.

I kiss the unreachable hollow
and gaze the obscurity of sin
Then return to me from far away
and bravely open wide the void that is

The space for the redemption of me.

A painting of a blind man

A painting of a blind man looks at the numb art-lover
who faithfully hesitates to speak of that silence
that lies about belief

and hopeful of yesterday he works out the laziness
that moves him to stillness doubts truth
and boldly fears love

gathering his dispersion he embodies a thought of
smiling his pain inhabiting his wandering
Then blesses the denial of soul

never now says the blind man

No tengo nada contra ti Mujer

(by José Miguel Ibañez Langlois)

No tengo nada contra ti Mujer
Me pareces sagrada y misteriosa
Y más próxima al Cielo que a la Tierra
No tengo nada contra ti...
Si no es...
Que un dia te caerán los dientes
Que no eres Dios
Que engordas
Que te mueres

You know you’re destined to make love with death, So

You know you’re destined to make love with death, So

will you be raped by a violent stranger
a camouflaged hunter of implacable cunning
an eye-averting soul-stealing chaser?

or will you choose the tender mutual all-giving
of that ever-promised, ever-faithful
veil-faced truly virginal bride?

(so may pains in the heart

(so may pains in the heart
never made it stop until now)
as life rudely flees from me
as my legs give way
to the abrupt weight of the body
which starts to fall helplessly
impolitely with noise to the ground
(and in a few days it will break through
the ground, silently, politely)

and my falling brain spins slightly
on top of a carelessly relaxed neck
(in a few days resolutely stiff,
and then disintegrated)
and my eyes roll up to show me
that shelf I must fix some day
(but there’s so much on my mind,
and so little time)

as my knees hit the floor
sideways, painlessly,
(there is only one pain now,
only one problem)
I realise there will be no return
from this inopportune descent
(I had never noticed it,
but my life is complete)

a moment inside stops the hasty day

a moment inside stops the hasty day
eyes closed look around to find
everyday companions and common occupations;
in quick succession come recollection, regret, resolution
as heart rises and grows
and sucks a tremendous amount of life into this tiny moment,
(apparently nothing happened,
proving that appearances can often fool you)

To make the universe come true

To make the universe come true
With commitment strong as creation

To make the world boil from its bowels
With passion strong as redemption

(oh I truly believe so much happens in people’s minds)