Unlike

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.