The first time I saw you,
I knew your eyes weren't just brown.
I stared into your eyes
and they reminded me of soil.
The comparison itself doesn't sound so pretty,
but I stared a little longer
and your eyes reminded me even more of soil.
Soil that life peeps through to spit beautiful flowers,
Soil with rich health growing among it,
Soil that holds more than billions of lives;
memories, tears, laughter and anger.
Soil that trembles the world averagely two inches into disaster,
Soil that covers the nickel nucleous of our precious blue star,
Soil that preserve resting ansestors,
dust they became.
Soil that clasp secrets scientists breathe for revealing,
Soil that hides the bones of the first organisms to roam this planet.
Your eyes weren't just brown,
they weren't just ordinary brown eyes.
Your eyes were heavy with the world.
And as I clawed deeper and deeper into your soul,
I felt how your body cracked
little by little
like fragile glass wanting to burst with burning hot water.
Your eyes are so brilliant,
but to cradle tremendously vast amounts of the Earth's existence must be
so frightening.

When they buried me in the dark, I was frightened.
I didn’t like the taste of earth.
And I was so thirsty.
Some people are no good with plants,
Even the hardiest shrubs
Wither and wilt in their careless hands.
You aren’t one of them.
When no-one else could see,
You took such good care of me.
Water, warmth and love.
These are my needs, but I had no voice
With which to ask; without you
I would have remained inert
A lost life, in the dirt.
See now, how I blossom?
Just a shoot, but I will astound them all
With my beauty, in time.
Thank you for caring for me,
Thank you for helping me to grow.

I (Bread and Music)

Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread;
Now that I am without you, all is desolate;
All that was once so beautiful is dead.

Your hands once touched this table and this silver,
And I have seen your fingers hold this glass.
These things do not remember you, beloved,
And yet your touch upon them will not pass.

For it was in my heart you moved among them,
And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes;
And in my heart they will remember always,--
They knew you once, O beautiful and wise.

II

My heart has become as hard as a city street,
The horses trample upon it, it sings like iron,
All day long and all night long they beat,
They ring like the hooves of time.
My heart has become as drab as a city park,
The grass is worn with the feet of shameless lovers,
A match is struck, there is kissing in the dark,
The moon comes, pale with sleep.
My heart is torn with the sound of raucous voices,
They shout from the slums, from the streets, from the crowded places,
And tunes from the hurdy-gurdy that coldly rejoices
Shoot arrows into my heart.

III

Dead Cleopatra lies in a crystal casket,
Wrapped and spiced by the cunningest of hands.
Around her neck they have put a golden necklace,
Her tatbebs, it is said, are worn with sands.
Dead Cleopatra was once revered in Egypt,
Warm-eyed she was, this princess of the South.
Now she is old and dry and faded,
With black bitumen they have sealed up her mouth.
O sweet clean earth, from whom the green blade cometh!
When we are dead, my best beloved and I,
Close well above us, that we may rest forever,
Sending up grass and blossoms to the sky.

IV

In the noisy street,
Where the sifted sunlight yellows the pallid faces,
Sudden I close my eyes, and on my eyelids
Feel from the far-off sea a cool faint spray,--
A breath on my cheek,
From the tumbling breakers and foam, the hard sand shattered,
Gulls in the high wind whistling, flashing waters,
Smoke from the flashing waters blown on rocks;
--And I know once more,
O dearly beloved! that all these seas are between us,
Tumult and madness, desolate save for the sea-gulls,
You on the farther shore, and I in this street.

paint me with all those messy colors and broken brushes.
paint me with your rough hands and scrappy fingertips.
paint me with all your love and your regrets.
paint me in a dark room with uneven breath.
paint me with dried out lips and the tip of your tongue
paint me all night till you're halted by the sun.