Unlike a lightless schism,
No deep mystery to fathom.
What I may or may not feel
Is un-vital. Hardly real.
Yet you are. More than the rest.
I love you all. Or do my best.
In a world I longed to find
With all my blue moons left behind
On the far side of the earth.
- The stars, perhaps, have greater worth
Watched from that side of the sky -
If you could dream. If you could fly …
I wanted to believe you knew
Of love or tears. Or wanted to.
Perhaps you do. Or more than most.
Perhaps you pray beside my ghost.
A half a year before the dawn
Perhaps you, like a child, were drawn
To love, to motion, saving grace.
You saw a world within her face
And held an ocean in her eyes ?
Bathed in drama and disguise.
Yet feelings fade from touch in time.
Years are heavy; and heavier, crime.
They weigh upon a starving heart.
They tear your dreams and life apart
To scattered fragments rough as glass
And lie till innocence might pass
Like unclothed feet, unguarded, frail,
Un-callused … till there is a wail,
Beginning, very quietly
From deep within a cold anxiety …
Calluses can be acquired.
With leaps from canyons lit with fire.
And starving hearts learn not to be.
Drowning eyes learn not to see.
Young and strong and free at last
From pain. And growing far too fast,
Yet not too young to have a past.
I never speak about it here
I seldom voice a hidden fear
Or whisper to the quiet stars
Or weep for all that beauty mars
Or whistle by the amber mountains,
In search of purple salt-less fountains.
Listen far across the hills
And barefoot by the mountain rills
For a faint and distant sigh.
Torn by time, and death. And lies.
If you glance within your heart
You may tear your life apart.
You may justify your sin …
Search for angel dust within.
It may kill. It may heal.
The treasures of the sky grow real.
Break away mid earth and fire.
Give to glory’s deep desire.
In the frail moments of youth,
Every lie breathes unwashed truth.
Naught matters past reality,
Hard, correct and fancy-free.
You can sing false pleasure’s hue.
You can pierce me through and through.
Draw a blood drop from my eye,
Make me love you, make me cry …
Still I remain, as light friends tend,
Yet the same, unscathed, unbent,
But hardened for the next hard mile,
To the next unfamiliar smile,
And trust it not, as children would.
Though, God knows, how I wish I could.
For I am taught. And taught by thee.
Enlightened in reality.
With little left to do but pray
For the dim and distant day
When naught is yearned or questioned why
But the clouds who roam the sky.
