Liberty perched on a pedestal
balancing progress and evil
Holding high the palm of peace
over those who hold it so dear

But peace comes dropping too slowly
with all due respect to you, William
An unsettled and urgent promise
cloistered within vows of possibility

Willing victim of romantic culture
betrayed by the keeper of souls
Romance is no idle distraction
Intimacy, a vocation

Long afflicted by...
the sounds of music
the scent of linden blossoms
the taste of sea salted skin
the feel of sultry midnight air
the sight of sun through closed eyes...

Dreams once silently withering
liberated to wander freely
Uprooted from the stagnation
of emotionally depleted soil

Transplanted to aimlessness
where all roads lead to roam
Preferring the role of explorer
to the vagrancy of a lost soul

Strolling through this beautiful city
as having traveled throughout life
Observing without participation
part of a whole yet not wholly a part

An accomplished failure on a quest
to achieve simplicity of purpose
To savor those moments of stray peace
that ephemerally cross this path

...all the whilst searching for that bee loud glade

Tilting at butterfly windmills
in Parisian blown breezes
As gazelles seductively sway
to the melting light of night

Feeling her nocturnal whispers
puppy's secrets in child's ear
While white petals gently escape
eternal maternal bouquets

Pondering morphed realities
from verdant citrus cocoons
Long after jazz laden teardrops
muddled cinco de mayo

I must know...

the smell of your blowing hair
   in the leaf-strewn autumn wind

the touch of your hand on my chest
   closely held in a sleepy winter bed

the sight of your eyes lit with wonder
   for the beauty of spring's first flowers

the sound of your voice calling my name
   through a window from a summer garden

...and as the cycle renews...

the taste of your fertility
   under the cover of a harvest moon

...there simply aren't enough seasons
to gain a complete sense of all that you are

awakening autumn air
absorbed with thrown caution
a penchant for yawning leaves
an affinity for desiccated hearts

stirring lakeside willows
whisking emotions away
wafting feminine fragrance
in walking women's wakes

moving to its own designs
gusting in pursuit of change
swirling clouds of romantic disarray
into dizzying vortexes of possibility

expanding the bellows of intimacy
lovesmith for glowing molten souls
passionately ignited, vulnerably cooled
forging bonds, tempering existence

occurring slowly, imperceptibly
efficacy being subtly reduced
no longer radiating as it once had
decaying in all that matters

life awaiting reconception
metamorphosis to wholeness
but transition is rarely painless
its passage dark and damp

anxious waking in predawn gloom
curled within the womb of familiar
under a fraying comforter of security
worn even too thin for reality veiling

cutting the cord to the past is crucial
mindfully maintaining nurturing ties
a healthy present breathes its own air
into a future released from half-life

my rough and tattered edges like sea glass
smoothly rounded by her passions
relentlessly polished by intimate contact
with her welling water and earthy grit

the reality of her excites me
humbling any romantic doubt
dispelling any fantasy skepticism
instilling a will for the moment

she is energy in pure spherical form
encircling this scattered life
she holds for me a sense of place
a bookmark to poetic existence

just as bands bind magic barrel staves
as rainbows secretly circle underground
as concentric rings indicate growth
love will revolve even as it expands