A soul unfolds in light
petals seeking warmth are met
sometimes with thunderstorms
raging winds or desert heat
how delicate are they
to survive each element
and bloom again
and again
seeking always to unfold

The space you’ve left behind
Has shrunk into tight corners;
Into the deeper shadows of a darkened room.
The absence of you is an occasion, now,
And not the state of every space I occupy.
But there are parts of you, like partial ghosts,
That slips into my thoughts, my day;
Disembodied attributes that hover
Like the persistent grin of Alice’s Cheshire Cat.

I know your chuckle perches on my armoire,
Just behind the green ceramic bowl, waiting
For the right instance or thought—like when
I’m startled by my reflection, or when
I’ve suddenly remembered something I’d forgotten
And start, then stop, and start again,
All in a mad sort of twirl.

You’re ghost-chuckle descends, then
Like the sun breaking through clouds
I’ve stopped noticing.  It is gone just as quickly,
Dissipating into air, into atoms that are not
Separate from any part of me, or you; or
The space you’ve left behind.

When you come each night to me,
you make this space our world
Then what was stilled is overfilled,
my soul by love unfurled

Then every night you leave me
you leave without a trace;
the things you bring you take away
and leave less in its place.

I yearn for all those nights you stayed;
you held me in your glow
hands to skins and tangled limbs
spīritūs and soul.

But longing veils the Spirit,
such yearning taints the soul,
obscuring us from purest love
we lose sight of The Goal

Tonight I wish my heart were free;
that your leaving me was done.
I crave our ending,
Hearts transcending,
what wrongly was begun

I get lost in you
Its true
Drifting through your multitudes
Trailing fingers lightly, tenderly
along walls in the shadowy labrythinth
Of your mind
memorizing the textures
Nearer your heart ;
Dancing in your darkness to
The heat and thrum of your passions.
Drifting along within you, like your own blood
You are endless, infinite.
This ceaselessness intrigues me
And I am compelled by each new turn
to stay a bit longer, wander a bit farther
unfolding myself in the discovery of you.
But I am weary
And I long for a place to rest.

Our story began in the middle; between the spaces in our lives and minds and heart s
Where we spin out possibility.   A quiet spot in a busy place;
there I stumbled upon you while lost inside my own dreaming
There I was, drifting through my days in a flurry of verbs; winding through calendars laden with intent
And then this quiet spot in a busy place
Full of intention and designation.
I may have simply smiled absently, politely turning aside to give you privacy to sift
Through your own potentialities but for the expression of kindness in your features
And as my eyes flashed to yours in acknowledgement of a space briefly shared.
I was made curious b
y the simple audacity that would challenge convention
With such a smile.

Our story began in the middle; in spaces between points of interest in our separate lives.
Began in the interstices, the borderlands, outside time and in the margin;. Left of center.
In between destinations and intentions and within the flux of other, more prominent plots.
In a quiet spot, in a busy place, I recognized you when you smiled.

We know this table has been a fire pit in days long past,
a flat-topped boulder, a grassy river bank,
a row of seats along side a highschool ball game.
It is the gathering place of women who
know their history and the names of their ancestors,
who tell one another in stories that live
among the words they use.  Stories that keep them breathing.
This table, with it's polished oak surface, kept shining
with canned wax has been the heart-place home of the
people through ages.  It is the place
where the circle is widened, children are raised
and  Warriors seek council, leave reverent.
This table has woven whole societies, birthed legends;
dreaming the life of family/clan/band/tribe
into beads, quills and brain-tanned hides, sewing
them into the skins of daughters with the sinew of survival.
This place is strong like the August sun on the high plains,
and January winds on the prairie, enduring as the work of knives,
awls and the love that are used as tools here in this sacred place.
Here divinity smells of new sage bundles, green braids of
sweetgrass, fry-bread and venison stew.  It is warm
as a summer thunderstorm, a mother's arms or a lover's
lingering kiss.  This table has existed in a thousand
forms through centuries of stories.  This table, this
talk, this knowledge, this way of keeping real history.

Last night I caught the full moon in my eyes
where it  spun  into a universe of shooting stars.
falling into restless dreams, too full of sleep,
that moon, that blue-white, too full moon,
that night-other light, spinning in to a whisper
across  a spider's web between the glass and screen.
Trailing night behind her in globules of silver light,
she twirled on each single strand and slid over sill
down wall across crumpled  linen sheets
and slipped into my sleeping hair
dancing  tangles of cool night breezes;
whirling away at dawn across my sleep-flushed cheek