I wander through the evergreens
past stones no longer bearing names
the posy scent of faded blooms
now mingle with the falling rain.
My only company a crow
with beady eye and mourning clothes
aloud he cries into the squall,
this keeper of a thousand souls.
He leads me on to where you lay
in silent slumber all alone
in comfort now I pray you'll be
each stormy night and frosted morn.
The wind now moans its sweet lament
to bow the trees, their heads in shame
as tattered posies turn to dust
among these stones that bear no name.

i.

unwrap me tenderly,
pour your love
like water from a jug,
please me and
harness me,
bring me to life,
beneath your touch.

ii.

tonight the puddles
whisper to a wandering moon,
reflections like onyx in
dreamy pools, the
water’s soft breeze,
a stream of stars,
your love also, the song of a star.

iii.

the last heartbeat
of summer in the
honey light,

after the rain
everything feels
refreshed,
ink pressed to
the water.

iv.

nightingale-free
the breeze
whispers to the
trees,
dark-eyed, its
leaves a rose
on my pillow,
beats an ashy drum.

v.

you pull me to you,
i’m brought to life
by the sound of your voice,
caressing me with
your lips, my back
arched back, my ribs
a dream of you,
monet-reflected
in the night and in your
eyes.

your words sound my bellsoul
a depth charge of incandescent tone
to coalesce the ground of my whisper-being
to sunder me from self-falsity
to shoe my doubting feet with fierce clarity
to walk me thus shod in cradling Truth
more deeply into the oblivion
of my ethereal dark    whose web tingles and sounds
with tiny silvered bells

I am belled
sounded by Love in Love

Its deep and penetrated tone
calls back
the shards of being
I abandoned
along my lifeway
so to join me

together


c. 2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater

here we are standing
in a absolute time
were seconds seek minutes
are split seconds all we have?
and hours offers days
this makes me asking
about the current situation:
*are all lives dawn-to-dark?

comes a time to turn   to put the feet of the heart
forward    step at a time   each foot shod in time lessness
and space lessness

comes a space to hold    to place the hands of the soul
around    the body’s tabernacle    each hand soothed and
soothing

comes a view to see    to cast the eyes of the being
beyond    the mind’s walls    built by No without
Know ingness

comes a time to cluster these     in courage and trust
to move away    from the air lessness of shallow being
Toward

to step off the craig    onto Love



c. 2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater