love's office
is the heart;
its administration,
the mind;
while irrationality
leaps neurons
too quickly
to be stopped.

merely

brushing fingers,
                your hand,

(knock
love's door)

or
lacking,

(knock
against chest)

sends you

mad.

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
— John Keating, Dead Poets Society

So we sat there
Pipe in hands
Singing our favorite songs
Listening to our favorite bands
And those few minutes
Sitting close on those rocks
Made quite the difference
To the order of my thoughts

Have you ever held your hand still
Just above a river’s passing water
Liquid rushing by reaching for your skin
Jumping up; eager to commune with you
Beckoning you to dip a finger in

a vow
I made a vow
to myself

that I
would
take
my
mind
back

that I
once again
would try to make
music on the
wrong kind of keys

that I
once again
would desperately
with clumsy ignorance
capture in vain
small pieces of
ephemeral beauty
in my trembling hands

that I
once again
would fail to
find words
to carry a thought
to definition
a foggy memory
into focus

that I
once again
would find
that I can hide
comfortably
in phrases

that beauty
is audible
in silence