dear lights

Passing on, passing on...

wonder what tune they whistle now
what sort of beauty they structure and spin

there, beyond this worry and woe

wonder what wonder they felt before reaching out for their new-cast burdens of joy

and joined in the
Unity! Unity! and Praise!

leaving weeping shadows behind...

did they?
cast one last glance
over their shoulders

of pity and understanding

as we bend to resume our urgent tasks of love
hoping to earn the key to That door.

These words just sit here

While you struggle to breathe...

I am strangled by my need to reach you

With the pure water

loving and
of course doomed
you can see it in every word and line
how we know even in loving we are doomed
to die in heartbreak and loss
daily deaths that leave us gasping
the searing lungs
the wrenching heart
the heaven-seeking eye
the bitter gut
protesting at continuing this life
without...

without...

without
love

startling awake to the sound of our name

no...

but...

no

Hello you
Yesterday I had an epiphany about what you do
You have spoken about the hero-status of the uniform
And the depravity beneath it
However
However
The work, the career of rescue and disaster relief, whether from heaven or hell
Is heroic
I have saved lives
Battling uteri that would send the mother out the same door through which the infant just came
Wading through the sea of clotted blood
To find the flaccid muscle to hold death at bay
Have pumped hearts that lie quivering
Slapped and pumped infants with the fixed dilated pupil
And no matter the role we play in that
No matter
How tired it kills us
And how we find rejuvenation
It is heroic work
Even when we cannot bear the role any more
I have been recuperating from that job since you have known me
And I want to say I had forgotten the price.
And that you continue to pay the price of hero-work
The real price

these dreams

these counterfeit dreams

even these I mourn,
having traded them for mine
my own
in my journey toward loneliness
with you

now
how I
rummage
in the backs of kitchen drawers

fumbling
for the originals

There is an endless field of flowers
a sky untrammeled above
sweet gasps of warmth
lifting my hair to the sun
a tickle of coolnness beneath
the quiet space where I wait