the traces
held so closely
they break.

all that was said
and left
unsaid.

the touch
of the beloved
a fading memory.

your smile
like the sea greeting the pink dawn that day
vanished into starless night.

and i, in truth
though torn open and emptied
still draw from the well
of gratitude, that endless sky
that you left in me.

a parting gift.

fragments of light.

tender mystery.

drowning anguish in
tantric abandon.
a smile like the sea at dawn.
the body glows
in solar eroticism.

petrify your fallen leaves
what i said and left unsaid
all at last you kept, not without the rest
seasons change songs that never end

speak with secrecy my myth
what remains that chance can offer
who lost and left closed the door to themselves
i'm caught in creases of your palm

too much for me to untangle
wasn't sure what being heard was
we catalysed the grace of this strange place
i can see the shore fading glad

the pink dawn greeting the sea
cumulus range billowing
a softness to all that was and would be
this was the light of your smile

i'm flying towards your sky now
and i keep with me his defeats
and i pretend to soar to forget the fall
but i know i'll keep on the way

to walk beside your welcome
i'm a refrain in your song
i'll set among suns, your treasures joyful
unbroken and beseeching

remember to be kind
to yourself.
it is easy to forget.

i know nothing of love
that is not an extension
of the sun.

i know nothing
but fascination.
unknownness for the fabricating.

our song will never end.
it will only be taken up
by other instruments.

all that is lost
returns
in altered form.

the place you are looking for
is on the move
looking for you.

what chance
to have laughed
and danced

and to go on.

terrified again
of speaking
of speaking but the words not coming
of speaking and the words coming but not reaching
of speaking and the words coming reaching but losing
all significance upon arrival
as if they had wings
but no feet to stand on
and so were always already destined
for crash landing—and lo,

what flights of folly.

was i seen and heard and perceived for what i really am?

unknown.
if anything is clear:
i must learn to listen harder
if i am ever even to dream of truly speaking:
this itself is what it is to think.

these things are most difficult of all:
(not to scorn, mock, or despair at human action, but) to understand
to be kind to yourself
to pledge your body to the Idea
to persist in being
                           kind to yourself.

all Ideas have been betrayed.
a philosopher says:
all the world will ever offer you is the temptation to surrender.
the ethical act is to resist
to transgress
the transcendentally
stupid
cruel
law of this world.

there will be risk, there will be laceration, and anguish
but no one moment
is unendurable.

mieux vaut un désastre qu'un désêtre.

and so what might become of us?

imagine the most beautiful being in all of existence
and you'll almost be there.

i know nothing of love
that is not an extension of the sun.

i have become light.

i know nothing
but fascination.

what chance
to have laughed and danced

and to go on.

our song will never end:
it will only be taken up
by other instruments.

i have become light.

all that is lost
returns in altered form:
disguised, transfigured.

we will be transfigured.

what you seek
is seeking you.

how certain i was the dark would find no end!—and lo,

i have become light.

stronger than time.

a site of communication, ecstatic love, art
in the eye of god.

a dancing star.

i have become light.

what chance!

—i and all the others that will love you
forever and forever and
forever—

what chance
to have laughed and danced

and to go on.

time again, as if for the first—        not yet
does the earth have a meaning or a sense
and they neglected to tell the children
the limits of the possible are not set.

beneath the crust of daily indignities
courses the plane of unceasing life;
eruptions across history, one strife
if unsurrendered: serendipities.

go my soul, "love what you will never believe twice"
in the end, all there is is the throw of the dice.

did you notice when the words shed their skin?
the hour was late in the idle day
and the light of significance grew dim.
at the shore, the waves compelled you to stay

and you saw, in the waves that slid away
all the ways in which you could have altered
the course, and return, of waves come to claim
what was only ever borrowed from them.

two serpents of galactic consequence
are coiled in the incommensurable.