it isn't all black and white
the choke-hold of history

shades of red and brown
paint the scenery, too

the documented imagery
forgotten in the fray

a little big horn playing mournful
songs as the cavalry marches on
to the tune of galleons and guns


no passport required
when the port was young

émigré and immigrant
displacing native sons

who also once were pilgrims
breathing in the sun.

It is no accident that we have palms
With fingers extending from them
For when we unite our two hands,
They become a blooming flower.
We can follow the veins with our eyes
From fingertips to hearts
Blushing red.

Pumping into us another day
Another hope
Another dream
To find within ourselves the petals
To water faithfully.

I have watered fatefully.
Yet my flower has grown too long
In chilly dark basements
With mold growing in the corners and
Cobwebs decorating cracking walls.

I’ve only the strength to crack a thin beam of light
To dance upon the corners of my flower.
When will the music invite more?

Before my eyes is the war dance, the armies of light enact,
is this, one inane madness or pursuance of a vision divine?
what makes me lose my heart, to you for all the time?
White lotus of my thoughts, the blooming my every cell echoes,
we are no different, I am reminded, our union is beyond time.

Through this limitless moor, tireless miles,alone I walk,
feel your presence everywhere when the wind booms
the blazing desert sun is unforgiving, it implied this:
"I'll make him regret for his insane love, the intrepid adventurer"
even if he scorches me to death, would I ever let go of my love?"

Rain lashed, strong guests of gale pelted hailstones,
uprooted trees asked me to stop,paths became waterways,
nothing, except your face, entrenched deep in my consciousness,
was in my recall; our love,I resolved, wouldn't die, even if I fall.

White lotus of legends, in you  enshrined, is my essence,
don't pretend, you are unkind and  I am not in your eye shot,
for you the rules of love I'll throw to the winds, cross the river of fire,
pull out all the stops to reach you, may it be in this life or in any other .

at last -
our routines collide;
a daily walk, kiss, sweat,
our letters turned post-its
phone-calls to real life sound waves
bounding home.
The strange comfort
of arguing - knowing you're in the next room
not the next stretch
of foam-etched ocean
away from a 'sorry'


and knowing
it still grows, away from the distance
the aching, the halflife,
it's growing,

maybe more than before.