Your Sweet Soul

The cold through cracks blows, the gray cloudy skies seemingly drifting into the room and yet, there you are, sitting, working, beauty like incense permeating senses, a warm tropical breeze moving slowly amongst leaves, green, swaying as you pass, giving life, sharing your brightness with those who, for too long, have seen only darkness.

There are days that the bitter cold wins, the battles fought hard come short, but, in the end, you, because of who you are, because of the luminous spirit that dwells sweetly within you, the war will be won... Won by the love you possess, the love you unselfishly, tirelessly give. I feel it everyday, every moment we speak, every second we sit in silence. You are a light that pervades every corner of my insides shining without occlusion, truth seen fully and accepted completely because of who you are, because of... all of you...that sweet soul.

True and Lasting Beauty

You, dear one, give hope. You lend beauty and light into a world many times dark and colorless.  A singular red rose, you bloom splendid over a field of snow.  Spring's renewal wafting from your eloquent tongue, your laughter, your sweet tears, your warm smile.

There is no other more beautiful than you.

Through the shiny

Childhood words still ring, captured deep

Now and again they seep,

resonate through years

But now encouragement shared

Able to struggle through veneers

laid thick one layer, another

Shiny poly protects and

we look great, but feel nothing

Grind down through pain

through tears and anger until

the real is touched

caressed, protected

Your smile opens my heart 

rids the shiny

...and slowly, imperceptibly, the specular layers wear through

to see blemishes real

No fear with trust

Next to me

Sit beside me my love

Hold my hand

Watch the seasons,

the colors as they change

Grow old with me

next to me

And I will love you,

nurture and protect you

And lost within

the deep pools of blue

my happiness will live

And eternity will be met

with a smile... knowing

love was found, you were mine.

Deeper

A word, a phrase, a sentence - though easily remembered

is like a mask, thin and clumsily covering the authentic.

The real you is a plunge from the continental shelf,

the lighted caustics in the shallows falling away in dancing marbled patterns...

darker and darker into pitch where not even you have seen the secrets buried.

Streaming

Love shines from your countenance as 

dusk's sunlight through broken clouds,

Your light streaming

beams upon an

undulating ocean

in scattered fractal patterns.

And in my tiny boat, rolling atop the waves, I sit,

my face looking up, eyes closed... I smile feeling your light warming every part of my soul.

...and the water all 'round blooms in splendour

The Moon

You are the moon

pulling me, moving me

and under your spell

a whirlpool spins

and I, dizzy, am swept within your deep

And joy spills from within me, sprays all around me

unable to contain

my love for a treasure once hidden

You are the moon,

I am the tide.

Build you up

I feel fumbly at times reaching out to you, 

my steps wobbly, as a toddler walking.  

My words, in the end, impotent ...and yet here I

am so very far away and, no matter how fervently

my expression, I'm helpless.

But daily I pray my utterances, though never enough,

will fall lightly upon you,

that they will build you, strengthen and reveal you.

That you will someday see your reflection in my

eyes and know how truly beautiful you are.

The loud silence

That I would hear your silence again, 
glimpse the quiet escaping from your eyes.  

The wisp of a breeze your smile, 

Your tears the rustling of morning dew tenuously perched upon a petal.  

In the quiet much is said, 

sometimes screaming in moments mute.

Finally Cut

It's right to back away but my heart is being pulled from my chest and a cold void is in its place.

I yearn to feel nothing, to see you as a cold and hardened sculpture.  

To look upon you purely as beauty admired from afar without warmth. 

Can I not walk away with only the memory of a cold surface and not the hope of your love, not the shredding and tearing within me?

Cut me from you, not with deafening silence but with your tongue, a sharpened knife, that I might finally fall away into the dark and die inside, my words to stop in the hollowness that will follow.

Over you

There's a chasm between acceptance and forgetting. I've accepted her almost complete absence, but every day think of her. When life is busy, or when it slows to a snail's pace, snippets of her come. I'm thankful they do not stay as they did months ago but I'm looking forward, mostly, to few if any. It's not to say the thoughts, the memories are bad, quite the opposite, and that's the problem. The challenge in life is not in finding that person, but in learning to live without them.

A tired sign

Along the path teeters a weary sign. Battered and rusted, bent and discolored, it's one of many along this road. Lessons learned, she now grows ever smaller in the rear view, inexorably

pinching to a vanishing point, fading in the light blue haze that only time and distance brings.

Awakened

Like a slight breeze blowing fog over the bay, thoughts of you come in...

They awaken me from a deep sleep and try as I might, they do not leave, but linger

There is no comfort in these thoughts, just a sadness that weighs on me, a heavy quilt of patchwork memories.

In the end, the writing helps more than anything... It's not conversation, but the words need saying, the mind needs to share so that once again I'm able to rest.... But daily you're there, like an incredible sweetness on the very end of my tongue... And in the silent midnight pitch, tears well-up and fall.

Dating myself

I think it was my daughter, Amanda who told me about this: Dating Myself.

I'm going to give this a whirl. Dinners are half price, movie tickets as well, I get my own humor - and will even sometimes laugh at myself (though usually when recovering from something dumb), and in the morning will wake-up to a person I want to make breakfast for...  Actually, this is going to be a lot of fun :-)

Our tree

A seed was planted years ago. Watered in life storms and baked in the heat of pain, she was nurtured and grew.

Diminutive once, now a tree; tall and strong, and swaying in strife's winds, bowing in response, un-breaking - her roots deep, wide, holding onto the soil that surrounds and feeds.

The cold months now lie upon her and though appearing asleep, growth is happening in whispered tones. Do not fret, for Spring is just around the corner and again you will see blue skies and feel the warmth of the sun upon your translucent fluttering leaves.

The week

This was a long week. Long hours, long times of too much thinking about things that ought be put away. 

When tired, those thoughts pervade - barriers built by strength gone. In many ways they don't bother me - they linger for too long, perhaps, but they tell me that what was there, what is still there, was real. The intellectual part of my mind understands the reasons for the break - but my emotional side has not accepted them. And it doesn't matter that there's nothing reciprocal. 

You see, it started as a wonderful friendship. Wonderful as it allowed me to love fully without expectations. There was full acceptance with no reservations. The knowledge of her came slowly and a foundation of trust was built around that knowledge. 

Perhaps, this is what there will always be:  That I'll always adore her because of all of who she is, and was, and will be... Ill always cherish her because of what makes her, her. 

And I'm happy with that. :-)

My?

My love
My one
My heart
My soul
My only
Your eyes
Your touch
Your laugh
Your smile
Your "good morning"
Your slurp scolding
Your one
My hope
My life
My future
My present
My past
My love

My love.

Casa Mañana

Enjoying the day last weekend with the talented and hard working Juli Mohan of Mustang Productions. Fun hanging-out as she shot a story for her show, Horse Country USA. She did let me scout a couple of B-Roll shots :-)

Turn away...

Now and again, looking for anything but,
the past is found,
in photos bright and happy, vibrant, telling.
And though quickly turning from them
lest, caught in a whirlpool,
I am soon swept deep within
and in those memories drown.

Real, nothing else

Like saccharine to sugar, there is no substitute that takes your place.

For months I've tried... each time coming away empty, cold. In my mind, plastic centerpieces, where, from across the room all is tantalizing, but nearer, finding no fragrance, no bitterness, no sweetness inside, I'm again disappointed and again withdrawal wanting nothing at all.

Always, compared to the real, artificial never measures-up. It lacks everything the heart desires. Why settle for less than genuine, less than real, less than you? At least a scent, a sliver, a glance, a wisp and even a void is real. And isn't that better than fake?

U-shaped...

What do we do when the heart is torn out
When there is nothing left but a u-shaped void

Let me once more touch you
let me stretch across the vastness
and caress you
let me reach in and hold your heart tenderly

For I long to see myself again in your eyes
and shower in your giggles

For nothing and no one fills the u-shaped void
the wilderness memories, the vast, unending starkness
of life without you.

Existence

If not my love
then my friend
If not friendship
An acquaintance
If not an acquaintance
Then mere existence
For
without you
life is not living

but with you...
life unfolds
reveals its full joy.

Revealed

A drapery diaphanous
she flows
through windows open
slowly billows
And though beautiful in calm...
through breezes her strength revealed
a kinetic, moving grace
yawning, draping, whipping, gaping
she flows
loved, cherished, adored.

Let me hear you

To hear again her voice
tower carillon over blue covered miles
And though fear from unknown creeps
my heart leaps, skips beats

And in her words
her sun-ray warmth beamed
bathed and melted
pouring over her
like molten chocolate
all that is me

To hear her voice again.

A Rapier

Rapier
slender,
steely, swiftly
plunged deeply
where no one had touched, to its hilt you thrust,
embedded...
and then,
silently, without a whisper, finishing the deed,
withdrew the dripping blade
And left me to hemorrhage
our tourniquet friends to mend

Nothing

Tossed.
Trash.
Waste.
Rubble.
Mistake.
Worthless.

Nothing.

Never.

Shards

Shards of glass
shattered long ago
Lie upon my floor
Most swept-up
...all but the smallest
Yet a daily
stray cuts me
And again I bleed

and yet, not to discard
I pick them up, the shards
and though not a cup they make
piece them together,
time's glue holding
and the sun shining through a window next
refracts and throws a rainbow.