KITE • WE ARE NOW
We Are Now (Ways To See)
When all those dreams
Were still desires,
We laughed more so much more.
Back when we smiled at the thought
Of long purple mornings—
The last drops of wine
With the dawn.
No higher place to fall from,
Nothing below from which to rise.
We are now.
When all those things we wanted
Became our fears,
We stopped talking.
Eye level stares across
Yellow fogged afternoons—
Faraway todays
Slipped away too soon
No higher place to fall from,
Nothing below from which to rise.
We are now.
When our dread
Was all that was left,
Silence turned to screams
Lines tugged at the eyes
Tethered to earth and stone—
Leaving those dusty stars
To themselves, alone.
No higher place to fall from,
Nothing below from which to rise.
We are now.
There are ways to see
The sky, the low horizon,
The soft floor beneath
Our feet.If all the readiness—all the action—
Were strewn about the ground,
We missed it somehow.
We can’t help but see the answer now:
That what is done is done.
And what is now
Is always just begun.
The way to see is to forget your eyes.
Forget the pain, the fears that divide us.
Then watch as moments crash like surf against stone.
And let your life be led by love.
The Proposal
The imperfections of a man, his frailties, his faults, are just as important as his virtues. You can’t separate them. They’re wedded. ~Henry Miller
It’s time I figured out just where we’re going.
It’s time I figured out just how to keep
You with me.
It’s not as if I’ve been waiting.
It’s not as if I’ve been afraid.
I’ve just wanted you to see:
All the broken branches from the treetop
That the wind had slashed and pitched away,
And like wrinkles, lay heaped on a frozen lake.
How storms have mud smeared the roadway,
Or drought has sucked the color from the soil
And left cracks peeling back like a snake’s recoil.
It’s beautiful, like you.
Like me, like you.
If you’re the spring, I’ll be the snow.
I
Will flow
In you.
If you’re the seed, I’ll be the rain.
I
Will flow
In you.
I’ll ask in the sand, our feet wet and buried.
I’ll ask in the snow or in piles of leaves,
With rinds of lime in our drinks.
Let the storms begin, and the soft lit days
Let our feet dig in and our hands enlace
And tangle together all our ways.
The ovum skim that drools down the stream vein
From where the lake’s green glistening sac had burst,
Like tears at birth, clings to everything at first.
How heat has flayed its delicate underbelly,
And purged the yolk-spine legs to dangle free–
Down they glide spreading wide like limbs in the breeze.