Feelings

He sang of smoking water in the rose-colored daybreaks,

Of colors: cinnabar, carmine, burnt sienna, blue,

Of the delight of swimming in the sea under marble cliffs,

Of feasting on a terrace above the tumult of a fishing port,

Of tastes of wine, olive oil, almonds, mustard, salt.

Of the flight of the swallow, the falcon,

Of a dignified flock of pelicans above the bay,

Of the scent of an armful of lilacs in summer rain,

Of his having composed his words always against death

And of having made no rhyme in praise of nothingness.

I am skipping over sunbeams

As they fall on the road,

A little game I like to play

When life becomes a load.

As I leap over the light lines

I leave a care behind,

I let the sunlight keep them, then

Gravestones have a tale to tell;

a strangers or someone you know

There are flowers blooming for today

or weeds from sometime long ago…

Lives loved and lost to the eternity

that is sure to swallow us all

the air that seem to surround me

wants me to respond to it’s call.

Chiseled words weather worn and mossed

Secrets lost for eternity

Tell of winter nights and howling winds

and springtime nights of serenity

And inside of these mysteries

and the stone work of these lines

and image of our Past

and of Nature and our Times-

And time is but a blur,

the earth spins round and you turn to dust

the graveyard slowly disappears…

the Irons gates are red with rust

Vegetation’s filled the site

and I lift my hand in front…

of my face, to push the gate

but I’ve found that in my stunt

Your skin has blown away

and left you thin and white and pale

You shiver as your naked bones

are exposed to the Gale…

The ocean waves crash against the stones And the rock doesn’t know it is sturdy As it weathers the storm As the winds howl across its face It doesn’t know that it will remain

The ocean waves don’t know They will be whole again As they only experience the crashing, The breaking, the scattering And do not know they will Return to the sea with time

The sky doesn’t know it will Flush and wain But it will always return Not quite the same but Just as bright as before, And it does not know For each and every shade of itself Someone will be down below, Admiring.

The butterfly doesn’t know why it builds It’s cocoon, but it spins The silky cage all the same, Submitting to the darkness of itself In the hopes it will come back Out again, not the same Not the same Not the same But with the promise of Drying its wings in the sun And taking to the winds

And sometimes she doesn’t know Why she gets out of bed again, Sometimes she doesn’t know why She washes her battered body And swallows food Seeming as tasteless As a curse word in church.

Because your wounds

Look just like mine

Soft and familiar

Their borders

Whispered into a skin of stars

Bathed in light

By a handful of moons

.

You’re easy to love

Despite how you

Hide your pain in shadows

Behind tangled roots

Climbing each vertebrae

Of your spine

As it becomes you

And you become lessened

.

You’re easy to love

Because I’ve learned

To loathe my wounds

Their underlying ridges

Map continents of destruction

A story told

Of failure and weakness

Coordinates of which I’d really rather forget

.

You’re easy to love

Because your wounds

Look just like mine

But yours

I can bathe in forgiveness

Yours

I can kiss and say

“You didn’t deserve that”

Yours

I can love

Because yours

I can see for what they are

.

Even though your heart is broken

You’re easy to love

Just like I hope

I wake up before the birds

To talk to you,

To see that smile form

On your perfect lips

That part and make way for that voice.

I roll over with my hair

In a mess of a pile

While I hold my pillow tight

To my body as if it were you.

My phone rings,

And then I see the light-

Your smiling face looking into my sleepy eyes.

You are my 5 a.m.,

You are my sunrise.