Wishing Stars

Love,
when I am no longer body
and you have watched
what is left of my flesh
slip through your fingers

scatter my ashes into your morning
tea and remember the sweetness
on the heat of your tongue,

remember the words
that last longer than a lifetime
dedicated to the muse
of joy that laughed
at our pleasure
in the silence
of our breathing
at the edges of lips
and tender skin,

remember the treasures
no one but those truly awake
to each other
find in the depths, the thirsty wells
of a lover’s eyes.

When the frost comes
bury the earth of my red hair
with the daffodils and tulip bulbs
so that I might bloom
in golden and purple healing,

or if you can’t bear to part
as the light is leaving the skies for winter,
offer me in spring
to the roots of pumpkins and tomatoes
who will gladly take my cells
and rebuild them
into the candlelight
we loved to savor
in the music of evening.

If all else fails
and your courage is gone,
walk into the enormous love
of the sea
with my remains clutched
nearest to your heart
so that I might hear the waves
beating there one last time
before we sink into the depths
together to wait
for our next lives

shining in the truth
of the brightest
wishing stars.

Of Nothing

Resting on the shore
of your body
I am silent
in the muted light
of a half moon.

What joyful dream is this
that allows me to return
to this safe haven
time and time again
with a key to kindness jangling
in my otherwise empty pocket?

The water surrounds us
on all sides
of this island of compassion.
Here the treasure
is buried under
the surface of our skin
and in the wide open cavity
of our hearts.
The world is an unnecessary map
as we have discovered everything
glittering and gold in our loving.

You crawl in to the secret of me
and appear as if all purple
and lush green light
has been extracted
from the night’s sky
and arrives fully formed
in the smile you have delivered
freely from the promise
of nothing.

I breathe as if remembering
10,000 lifetimes
and have whispered the words
of a prayer taught to me
by every other
mirrored image of you.

Anniversary of Air

It is the mist of August
that descends like a sleepless woman
into the trees,
where the earth has no beginning
and looks like the sister
of the end of time,
where I open the door
to the memories that throw shadows
on the fire of what might have been enough.

In this dream
that is always beginning
you are the mirror of my lover,
flow blue
as button posies
in the moonlight
and speak to me
in the hushed language
of God.

In this dream
that is always beginning
we exchange bodies like madness
while the river disappears behind the bend
of our thoughts.
Here you embrace me
from the inside out
and eternity
is only a long hesitation
while we practice our sighs
like breathing
toward permanent change.

Meanwhile, the news from home is easy
and says “Look at the calendar.”
and notice what day it is
and you will understand
that today is the day
straw turned to gold
and that the anniversary of air
has changed each day
we have lived since then
because we have dared to embrace
the sin that is rightly ours.

I Didn’t Hear It Then

What does it matter
to the longest stretches of time,
measured in light years,
or by the distances
between the planets and stars,
by granite cooling
after melting
in the center of the earth,
or perhaps by the sudden pop
of a sonic boom
as the force of leaving
explodes in the ear.

What if it doesn’t matter
that the silences
and the groping
on the hard surface of stone,
leaving me bruised and thrilled
with uncertainty tucked
into the spaces in my bones,
was all there ever was
of kindness?

Spiritual focus requires one
of two things:

Faith in what one cannot see
or the awareness of the greatest good
living as light and decibels vibrating
within the cells of each living thing.

When I watch your eyes
in the midst of love
in your hands—
When I see you gather
that life like a bouquet
of summer about to burst
into blossom—
I realize all the universe
I never heard
in the other songs
I have learned.

The August robins are gathering
just as they always do
when the light diminishes the way
we see summer and look
discontentedly at green.

And in the dream threads
I extract from the center
of my heart’s truth after sleeping,
the red-breasted ones
whisper the 10000 ways
to fly
before it is too late
to carry
your soul.

While Sinners Gossip

Lately,
as the earth begins to end,
the memory of heaven
has arrived in the order of affection
on the cluttered cupboards
of the neighbor’s rented cottage.

Come to tea at this ghost’s home
and the theology of practicing doubt
will be preached
over savory zucchini cakes
and muffins overflowing
with August.

God has given up drinking
in this kitchen
and has given himself
to the world’s wife
who has learned
what it took to seduce
the winter constellations
by reading notes
in the margins of possibility
and weaving the flowers of existence
into her attractive tendrils
on the length of steamy summer afternoons.

Forever is easy
around this cozy table
and the Almighty is willing
to walk out of Eden
to watch life unfold
in this particular eternity
while the river of truth
and honeyed scones
drop lightly
onto the marbled counters
while his beloved gossips
about the moon.

As I Am

Take me as I am,
the soft, ripe peach
of my left breast
and her nostalgic twin,
hanging bare in anticipation
of the harvest of your fingers,
the fine skin smooth, delicate
but for the downy fuzz of light
that summons your mouth
to the pink of a nipple.

What juicy sweetness you’ll find there
gathering perfume
from the inside
where the hard pit of morning
will be discarded,
dissolved into only the certainty
of this moment of opportunity
for happiness shared
between your lips
and my untouched skin.

Fear of the physical world’s agenda
and the frantic guarding of the body
straining against this fall,
against the gravity we all witness
is an obscenity
that will not enter
this bed chamber.

This sacred space
of the immaculate mind
is the only sensation
that is available
to replicate joy
as it drips
cool and delicious
down your chin
and onto the belly
of all you desire.

Unconditional

At the sharp edge of the waning moon,
cast onto the surface of Silver Lake,
I watch my loneliness
reach out to embrace
the idea of a lover
who might dive in
on the other side of this blackness
and find me sitting here
waiting for all this emptiness
to disappear as easily as drowning.

I have become the moon
who foolishly rises with hope
into the skies looking at all that might be
only to find myself used up,
slowly lost in the sea of stars
until I am unseen,
invisible to the caresses
of truth and gentle love.

I am, after all, unconditional
in my ways,
and always dance
with my hand
held lightly
over the heart
of my partner
in this tango
that weaves the soul tightly
to the causes of flesh
and joy that rises up
like tides
pulled by the forces
of the singing moon.

I am, after all,
hung over from the excesses
of this celebration
I was not invited to.
I am recovering
from the spaces between
birth and the place of all
knowing.

Sitting still
I wait for the next breath
to rescue me from hooting owls
and the deep repetition
of ancient, howling loons
before sleep laps up
onto the empty shore.