-In the style of Mark Nepo

I do not need to legitimate our hard-fought struggles.
My only wish was that you hadn’t given up on wanting
To continue this love after all the years and all of the things,
The things that had bloomed.  

For you found at the end in your dying bed, you could never stop.
"What I hold onto of you tumbles" from my heart into the depths.
"Like something that slipped through my fingers."
And I often scrabble to collect it.

She was so crazy she thought
She owned the dawn.

She thought every birdsong
Were sung for her.

The sun's shine,
The moon's glow,

All for her.
You taught her differently.

The flip side

I have loved you
- Tenderly
- Passionately
- Deeply
- Completely
- Without reserve
- Worshipfully

I have hated you because you made me.
I have hated with the same passion as I have loved.

Today is our only canvas.
We paint as if with colors
Chosen tenderly, carefully.

Love 'change.'
It can give you
A whole new perspective.

I have laughed
- With you
- At you
- For you
- Because of you

I have laughed
- Out of love for you
- Under you
- Over you
- Despite of you

Oh my love, our love was no joke.

This lily-rose-faced one, 'er
With lips set in a romantic pout,
And hips like a blooming flower
Opening.  Fresh with dew
Her alabaster skin glistens,
A slender neck begging for pearls,
Her long black hair is unbound.

With coverings of arabesque cloth
And tassels of gold in their richness,
Her sumptuousness abounds
Everywhere, on tables, lamps, beds.
She is the freest of free spirits set to fly
At a breath's moment, you will find,
Should you be able to be clear-eyed.

Will she stay for long enough? No!
She has already spread her wings to fly.
Though through life, she only glides.
But do not blink for a second an eye,
You will find that butterflies live brief
Lives.  And they and their beauty
Eventually, they die much too soon.

Vestigium, a Latin word meaning "footprint, trace."

Day hides behind a curtain of white,
So hides the night, the fading night.
The fog that descended before the light
Moves and curls around the lights brightly.
The earth is swallowing the memory of the sky.

With pressed-tight lips and dreary-eyed
I am staring into the obscure day, forming
As the fog leaves a footprint, a trace
On objects and roofs, then slyly drips down.
Its soft coolness covers me, as well.

Where is the context of things barely seen?
An ephemeral blanket closes in on us all.
Unsettling until the day is elucidating sight.
The lights all have halos like a holy thing.
At least it gives each one a certain clarification.

Still, the fog is closing in.