requited love

the heart pounds
its engines and its seas -
mend and free.


unrequited love

in the wild and
desolate sea we drown
our hearts full
of sorrow.

Bereft beyond contemplation,
          still do impoverished
memories still falter.

And every petal that
         lacerates within
inclines while scaring inward.


The blossom that you gave me,
        soils slowly. Soon I will have
just the decaying perfume to linger on.

R.I.P. Clinton Eugene Jarvis
~My father ~

The saguaro an altar
A tree stump a pew
He knelt in the garden
His church all that grew.

Cactus and succulent
Tenderly grown
Were all in his choir
For his ears alone.

From aisles of stone walkways
Stained glass in bright clouds
The sun was his mantle
The stars are his shroud

The lakes holy water
As a child he'd haunt
Skipping stones 'cross a pond
Like a Baptismal Font

Sat he 'neath the willows
To hear their prayer's sigh
The saguaro an altar

His Cathedral the sky.

SoulSurvivor
Catherine Jarvis
(C) 5/31/2018

what horizons await us, what skies fasten
to the bright ambers of our dreaming bones?

our love, water trickling over
a pebble in a stream,

the whoosh of  
leaves and a shadow in the dark,

the ghost of a poem
written in a dream,

the splendour of the tide,

both everything and
nothing,

our love neither a poem or a sigh,
all the winds battling,

spring's blue moon waiting near the
water for one slow ripple to reach
out.

That late evening drive was just what I needed.  With music to keep me company and help clear my thoughts.  The setting sun created oranges and purples for my eyes to make love to.   I would pass over rivers that looked like mirrors that looked like false skies flowing below me.  I drove and I drove. To no where. To everywhere.