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Soft as a Claude painting, the yellow sky tonight— trees in the parking lot still thick, though the air, yes, has an edge, the honey was solid in the jar when I opened it this morning, found a single ant frozen in the dunes, stunned by sweetness. Can you really die of sweetness? Hard to say yes, though I want to, looking up at these clouds that make my heart jump: oh joy in seeing though I can’t touch, like the girl repeating persimmon as the waitress in the diner tells her about a tree at the top of the hill she used to see, how beautiful that vivid orange fruit was all at once. Can’t touch them, but I see them in her eyes as she remembers persimmons. Maybe that was my mistake: thinking every love was different, a fruit inside its own clear mason jar—my love, her love, his, all separate as the trees they fell from. Maybe love is more contagion, bubbles in a bathtub slowly swelling, all the little circles drifting, gliding gently into each other until they burst, until nothing’s left but foam, the sound of rushing water.

by Kerry Hardie

Yesterday it was still January and I drove home and the roads were wet and the fields were wet and a palette knife

had spread a slab of dark blue forestry across the hill. A splashed white van appeared from a side road then turned off and I drove on into the drab morning

which was mudded and plain and there was a kind of weary happiness that nothing was trying to be anything much and nothing was being suggested. I don’t know how else to explain

Wait. Don’t go too early. You’re tired. But everyone’s tired. But no one is tired enough. Only wait a little and listen: music of hair, music of pain, music of looms weaving our loves again. Be there to hear it, it will be the only time, most of all to hear your whole existence, rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

Love is a beautiful thing, but what about those who were raised in the absence of it? How easily will they figure out what to do with it? Those who were raised on survival know how hard it is to pick up their lost parts, let go of the past, love themselves once again, and open their doors to receiving love from others. Some were able to do it on their own, but most got lucky to have someone on their side, someone who was committed enough and promised to never leave. These people need help, but they can't say it out loud. They listen more and talk less, rarely about themselves. To understand them, you need to question them a little more. The help they need is your presence, just to be there while they are fighting their demons.

[from my files]

* * * *

Say tomorrow doesn't come. Say the moon becomes an icy pit. Say the sweet-gum tree is petrified. Say the sun's a foul black tire fire. Say the owl's eyes are pinpricks. Say the raccoon's a hot tar stain. Say the shirt's plastic ditch-litter. Say the kitchen's a cow's corpse. Say we never get to see it: bright future, stuck like a bum star, never coming close, never dazzling. Say we never meet her. Never him. Say we spend our last moments staring at each other, hands knotted together, clutching the dog, watching the sky burn. Say, It doesn't matter. Say, That would be enough. Say you'd still want this: us alive, right here, feeling lucky.