Alight upon a frail stem,
Tussle, sway with the wind
In your brutal dance
Beneath an indifferent sun.

Underneath the brittle shell
Is a secret grace,
Waiting, longing to emerge.
Come back to me,

Fearless and on fire.
Strip skin, soul, bone,
Writhe in wondrous pain
Listen to the voice of blood.

There is power in small things -
The transparent wing emerging,
A song of light, this dying breath,
Revelation of soul to sky.

I am your heart,
Your body's final rest.
Come back to me.

Moonlight, white moonlight
Tangled in the pine tree outside my window,
I watch you shimmer and shiver.
Is this life?
Not even the wind can shake you free.

your hand waves
dismissively
your eyes as stone
you turn you head
I translate your body
tracing a spiral path
away from me
I read your heart
go away,
go away
I press my face against
a wall of glass
try to drive you
drive you
out of me
try to forget
that one moment of knowing
that one moment of joy
before the storm
sweet child inside of me
tender girl, forlorn
tender, tender heart
where is my river
my boat
my long journey into night?

In the wild world
I would love you
without guilt
I would call you
trembling,
I would ****** you
with words,
eyes, hands, lips
careless as wind,
I would speak
all the names
of your hidden desires
and give them to you,
day after day
until you are breathless,
aching
and burning for my touch.

"On the seventh day of the Seventh-month, in the Palace of Long Life,
We told each other secretly in the quiet midnight world
That we wished to fly in heaven, two birds with the wings of one,
And to grow together on the earth, two branches of one tree.
Earth endures, heaven endures; some time both shall end,
While this unending sorrow goes on and on for ever."
-  Bai Juyi - A Song of Unending Sorrow - 300 Tang Poems

+++++

The first day they met he gave her the poems
he'd carried all the way from China, a young boy
with a dream and 300 poems a thousand years old

...on the seventh day of the seventh month...

How could she not fall in love with him?

And his sculpture... carved with fire,
the strong, bronze back now frozen,
arms raised in wild and sensual supplication.

Were they his arms reaching for her?

He'd kept it hidden for twenty years,
waiting for someone, the right woman to give it to
And he'd told her,"I knew it was meant for you."

How could she not fall in love with him?

Each night before she sleeps
she reads a poem and traces her fingertips down
the cold beauty of that graceful spine

Wish he were here
wish this was his back
curving around me
curving around me in my bed...
whispering the poems of his ancestors

She knits her loneliness into scarves,
soft pink wools like clouds of candy cotton,
rough mountain wools that smell of heather and winter solitude.
Years from now, she'll wrap them round her neck to remember
how he once kissed her.

Didn't she write a poem about it?

and this is her dream:
they meet when they are young,
they fall in love,
they fall in love and marry,
they fall in love and marry and have ten children,
they fall in love and marry and have ten children and grow old together,
they grow old and blind and deaf, and still in love, they fall into the final sleep together
and their children's children's children will remember their love for a thousand years.

It's just a dream.
He will have children
but not hers.
She'll die alone,
she wrote that poem, too,
thirty years ago.

karma, karma, karma
stealing heaven

she writes:
what does this world mean to me without you?*

utter loneliness

the dream of him
holding me, knowing me
the gentleness of his skin
pressing softly,
quietly against mine,
he fills me up with memory
of a wild deer
in a dark green stillness,
strength full of innocence
uncomplicated and free