Distance

Can I open my life to you
Can I spread myself, like a bed sheet,
On which you come and lie
How can I, alone all these years, from across an ocean, across a myriad of cultures,
Make something out of nothing
With you.

Would it be honest of me to say,
That you are close to my thoughts,
That there are no differences between you and I,
Except for the ones enforced by our separate realities
Right now, you are not here.
This is fact.

Can we be one, you and I
One person moving through two lives,
Or two people moving through one life,
Bound together like a double helix
I do not wonder where you are, how you are;
I know.

I am here.
Sometimes, it feels like love.
I respond to truth like a wave washing on shore,
With relentless longing.
I am trying, trust me,
Trying to wait for you.

freedom

I want to be frozen in time
frozen, like my fingers in the snow

let me remain here
without children or responsibility, just reading

watching, exercising and writing,
in total freedom

Afternoon peril

When my heart turns, it is time to leave
Mid-afternoon, mid-conversation
Suddenly, things turn negative
Reminiscing becomes regret
You know what happens
I turn on you with my emotional knife
Jealous, angry, confused
You are confounded
You are a bunny hiding in a furry blanket
I grab the pillow from underneath your head.

You fall
asleep

I despair.

Beloved

Your smile
Transcends all boundaries and wears itself on me
Stretching my cheeks impossibly and suddenly
The days are a little less long
This fast is a little bit easier

There is such peace in talking to you!
(After the anxiety of waiting to talk to you)
I am thrilled, I am extended into an unexpected happiness
You are joy. You,
Waiting for me there

August by Mary Oliver (1983)

When the blackberries hang
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spend

all day among the high
branches, reaching
my ripped arms, thinking

of nothing, cramming
the black honey of summer
into my mouth; all day my body

accepts what it is. In the dark
creeks that run by there is
this thick paw of my life darting among

the black bells, the leaves; there is
this happy tongue.

[Bright] from Heavensgate by Christopher Okigbo

Bright
with the armpit-dazzle of a lioness,
she answers,

wearing white light about her;

and the waves escort her,
my lioness,
crowned with moonlight.

So brief her presence-
match-flare in wind's breath-
so brief with mirrors around me.

Downward...
the waves distil her;
gold crop
sinking ungathered.

Watermaid of the salt-emptiness,
grown are the ears of the secret.