It seems
that the moon is
blushing.

Mars must have
whispered something
sweet.

He may have your heart.
But he'll never have our moon.
Our beautiful moon.

I understand now.
A midst my glory, I had
Forgotten my cause.

Big World

Our hands met in a mess of rust red. Pressing the clay into heart shapes as they reached into one and other for something to believe in. But our journey began before then, in fits and starts. In passing scenes of first act exposition. My wondering eyes and yours of gloss and experience on summer nights of velvet lines.

We would be forced together, it seems, by happenstance and wine, like a passing note on a harmonica that you hit just right for the first time. And we would become fluent in our own drunken language of 3 am metaphor and sadness.

So many times, my lips began the journey to yours before we crippled them with “what for’s”. But still we’d share winter constellations and whispers and moments so perfect. Me on my knees, drawing your portrait on the path with handfuls of sand.

Even half a world away, my drink still seemed to rearrange itself into letters spelling your name. And then you asked me.

If the world seemed smaller.

And my mind was.

And my hands followed suit.

And then my frame began it’s descent.

But my arms stayed the same length. Just long enough to hold you.

I’d written the answer on the inside of my forearms, so I could press them to your body when I held you.

And my own joy of words, that only you would understand, I scrawled on my palms to serve as affirmations to myself when I covered my eyes to see no evil. Words like:

Majestic.

Precise.

Serendipitous.

And these words sent their letters to my mouth, asserting themselves in phrases like:

It’s a big beautiful world.

It is a big beautiful world.

And still we dance around our imaginary fire of ‘not good enough for you’ like a binary star. Beautiful but incomplete.

So, I loosened my tongue with women and foresight and raced the blood from my eyes to my core and pealed back my layers, until I could find the answers written in God on the insides of your forearms.

And now I know the answer to your question about the big, beautiful world.

And I don’t mind telling you.

I.

Don’t.

Mind.

Strong, stunning woman with hands covered in soil from the roots of the world she tugs on…

It is in your stride. Leaving wakes of timelessness behind you.

You seldom see, dear one, that you are the world. Not the child. And if I ever stoop to lift you, it is only due to the mountain you’ve erected beneath me, so that I can always see you. Across any distance.

You are reserved for made up words.

The story of your life is written on pages of gold.

I breathe honestly into the wind in hopes that it will touch your face somehow far away.

Tonight, I write by moonlight. My fifth glass of port wine is by my side, turning my blood to something sweet. I have no time for less.

I would whisk you away with me, but you are where you need to be and I haven’t found that yet.

But if you ever want to go, I would take you and show you the whole strange world that I see now.

No, my heart.

The world looks bigger.

Sometimes we are made aware of beacons in the rest of the dark.
Like stars littered across the attics we trap ourselves in.
Sometimes we chase rainbows with beggars eyes and wishes like children.

Some people are like soup soaked bread crumbs and wool mittens with the fingers cut out.
The rest of us are chimney soot.
And they are ‘chim chim cheree‘.

They are song filling every corner of the antique shop.
Silver under tarnish and weights and measures
balancing on the hands of the scale
suspended from the spear of a woman in white robes
with blue eyes that match the sky when we stare at it
and it usurps the corners of our eyes
and we are made aware of how small we are
as we get lost in how complete it is when it is with out clouds
with silver linings that never seem to follow through to rain.

And some of us?

Some of us are rain.

And thunder that shakes your soul.
And images of gods in black and white that burn themselves onto our minds
for us to study with our eyes closed.
And some of us are doing the best we can.
And some of us are not us.
But are the others.
And we would be lost without them
to point beyond red sails on sundown ocean horizons,
just before the world turns blue.
And some are the pops and cracks between the notes of Coltrane on Vinyl.

And you.
You smell of confessional walls and a nursery.
You smell of camp fire blankets and bruised roses.
You move like corner of the eye shadows
and windshield wipers with no chance of beating the rain.

You write like stone tablets and feathers.
Blown bubbles and spun webs.
And you feel like chance.
And love.
And strength.

You change like ropes on ship decks and tarot meanings from gypsy to gypsy.

And you are beautiful.
And beautiful.
And beautiful.

And everything.
And everything.
And everything.

Strong like ropes on yard arms of old ships in ancient seas.
And you go and you take us there.
And we go, because we want to see too.
And we want to be full on wild flowers and raspberries.

And we want you to show us the line on our palm
that separates the dark from the light.
And we want bed time stories and lullabies.
And with my eyes.
And with your own too.
And more importantly.

You.

You are the place where there is hardly no day time and hardly night. Things half in shadow and things half in light. On the roof tops of forever. Coo. What a sight…