Drinking to Love

My lips hover
at the edge of this glass of wine
filled with gratefulness and hope.
The faintest smell of sweetness
gathers at my nostrils
waiting for the next breath
to bring you inside
this intoxication.
In this moment I have the courage of language.
I have not forgotten how to sing
and I am dancing in the deepest awareness
of a love that has transformed everything.

We have walked into this field of daisies
a hundred thousand times to place our skins
next to each other.
Even in winter it is possible
to burn clean the place where our souls meet
with one single, compassionate kiss.
Even in the light of a clear day
our brilliance outshines the noon sun.

I am dreaming the violet aura of a crown again.
This time I am the queen of a gentle universe
crushed by the suffering of my people
being lifted off the distant minds of time.
From this primitive, silver place
we will all rise, holding tightly
to the promise of that absolute emptiness.

I sip slowly at my overflowing cup,
spilling this generous love over both our bodies—
unashamed of knowing the joy
of each moment of this mystery.

We have uncovered the miracle of eyes wide open,
awakened to knowing love
in the face of every living being.

When I hold you,
I hold the angels of each body
you’ve ever been
next to my lotus heart.
Out of these dark waters
has come what we know
is nothing but truth.

How Do We Color Love?

Step out on a clear December night
and look up past the shadows of tall pine,
the shape of smoke escaping the chimney
into the white hot stars
and you’ll realize it is impossible
to describe the color of love.

Try, if you will, to make the mind move
into the rustling sweetness of happiness,
kick your feet through those leaves of joy,
rake them into a pile of pleasure,
walk away and turn quickly
to run back into ecstasy
only to fall heavily, confused
to the cold frozen ground of expectation.

When I was a girl I stretched out in the warm
green grasses of shaded June afternoons
and imagined myself into the clouds
above the Minnesota prairies.
I could get there,
a little bird of hope,
resting at the edges of that misty whiteness,
it was where I first knew the infinity of the soul
rested only in my young body for a moment
and then it learned it must rise up to the call
of our mother’s loving voice.

When you close your eyes each night
at the end of a long day of trying
not to be swallowed
by the grief of all the strangers--
by planting the healing mind in the center
of each suffering heart—
what color do you see?

If I am lucky,
if I pay attention to the collective breath
of the gentle universe
in the stars of one clear December night,
I see the brilliant purple Aurora Borealis
start at the edge of my dreaming,
the ripple of beautiful forgiveness
for needing to know again
that this kind of enormous love
has no beginning
and no possible ending.
The crimson of this blood
will eventually run clear
without the sacrifice of one more child
in this kingdom of grey forgetfulness.

Perhaps it will be here,
in this place of calm abiding,
we will remember
the color of love.