I think to be thoughtful
I speak to be heard
I write to decipher
The truth in my words.

I smiled to ensnare you
I laughed to secure
You slipped through the trap
That I built to procure

I kissed to consume you
I hugged to enfold
My arms close on nothing
You're no where to hold

I writhed to entrance you
I clutched you to keep*
Now the place where I hold you
Resides in my dreams.

I write so you'll read this
My hand pens the truth
All that I've written,
I've written for you.

A father looks deeply
  into the eyes of his son,
He speaks soft and sweetly:
  "Child, my days are done."

"I've loved every moment
  From the day that we met.
The day of your birth,
  And I'll never forget,
You told me you loved me
  Without using words,
I gave you my heart
  And you gave me the earth.

"And though my life's ending,
   I want you to know,
This is the beginning,
  Of life on your own.
So hear me right now,
   With these final breaths,
And I'll tell you how,
   Your life shall be blessed:

Sing with the water,
  Dance with the bees;
Travel the world,
  And sail on the seas.
Learn to enjoy
  The moments you have;
For now is eternal,
  Yet time moves so fast.

"Learn to love,
  And love to learn;
Light your passion,
  And let it burn.
Reach someone,
  Touch longing lives;
We are all one,
  Together we fight.

"Let go of hurt,
  Learn to forgive,
Understand others,
  We're all new at this.
One day you'll see,
  You'll blink and wake up;
And then you will teach
  Your son to grow up.

He told her she was pottery; a vase with grooves and cracks.
The patterns of the history she hid behind her back.

Within his words he layered in- like thread upon a loom-
The sweetest undercurrent to illuminate that gloom.

In certain cultures, he decreed, when pottery is cracked
They aggrandize them with gleaming gold to bring their splendor back

For they believe, with certainty, once damage has been wrought
Those tiny cracks, now filled with light, hold truths that can't be taught.

The sun is a star in someone else's sky
The earth is a dust fleck, drifting on by
The moon is nothingness, just barely there
Between non-existence and thought caught on air.

Maybe you're nothing, and then so am I
But to me you are everything seen by these eyes.

Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly
in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . .
How did it go?
How did it go?

If I was a mountain

That soared towards the sky,

With craggy snow caps

And stormy grey eyes-



Then you'd be the clouds

That swaddled my peak,

That silenced my thunder

When I tried to speak.



If I was the earth

The desert, in fact:

With arid dry soil

And mud, baked and cracked-



You'd be the rain

The downpour that soothed;

The balm to my bruises,

Relief to my wounds.



If I was the Moon

In the indigo night,

With stars as my blanket

And silver; my light-



Well you'd be the Sun

Just always behind

That lent me your glow

And caused me to shine.