FIREDANCER

It was waiting in the distance

A ridge at the edge of the horizon

An olive grove, I thought

It took years for me to get there

Walking a little each evening

Mildly curious, expecting nothing 
My careless drifting across the landscape

Later at home I found the gash

Slicing its way over existing scar tissue

I let my fingers touch it

It was exquisite — a secret wound

I would nurture this one

Drape it in all my intricate finery

Bandage it with black laces

Read to it from ancient story books

What beautiful olive trees I said
Staring from the periphery

I spied flames somewhere at heart’s centre

A blaze was raging

Radiating heat and a multi-hued riot
Burnishing the path and the stones beyond

A scattering of newborn stars

Caused the fire to appear striking

Its veins hypnotizing in the twilight 

Masterful thief 
A firedancer waits in the grove

Unrequited Funeral

I go to a funeral each day   

I am the widow dressed in black

My tears always neat in place

I light a candle to squandered love

 

I got a rooster as a pet

To wake me at the break of dawn

Stop dreaming widow he’ll crow

We have a funeral today

 

I drizzle us with my perfume

Give us a polish and a shine

He grabs my leash and off we go

We have a funeral today

 

Respectfully we bow our heads

Follow the coffin at a slow pace

Then watch resigned as it descends

Deeper and deeper every day

  

Flightless flying multi-feathered valentine

Lost from the loss of the unfound

SHALL WE DANCE?

I never aspired toward

The terpsichorean arts —

Pastel colour satins,

Diadems and stars

In my hair, point shoes

And sylph like alignment

Were lost on me.

From my perch in lowland

I could not envision

The possibility of becoming

Airborne, the freedom of

Leaping into a jeté.

I knew about discipline

That took captives,

I never considered

The liberating discipline

Of dance.

Until that cloudy, liquid

Afternoon:  

You let your

Voice spill into the room,

And I thought of dancing.

Your words were dancing,

Nimble, gliding around us,

An intoxicating choreography.

I understood

The manifold complexity

Of the art, and your

Dexterity. 

Do you remember?

That day I asked you

Timidly, hopefully,

“Shall we dance?

In our own unique style,

            Shall we dance?”

THE BEST YEAR

Being not an optimist

I am resigned to the fact

I shall not acquire the wealth I desire

I thirst for a peculiar, infinite type of wealth.

I’ll never keep it in a bank

Or watch it surge on the big board.

Philanthropy won’t be its role,              

I mean to share it all with you.

I want it plentiful as rain

Which overflows the riverbank

Abundant light in cloudless sky

The nonmaterial, ethereal I want.

I speak of love.

An infinite, measureless love

Harmonious with spirit and with flesh

A love of quiet reason, warm-hearted laughter

Whose flaws are light

As dust upon a cloudless crystal

-Weightless dust caressed away by breeze-

It’s rare such a love, but I will bargain:

Call to the stars, they gaze upon infinity

As it travels by-

Send him to me I’ll ask,

The stars have seen his sails and know his name.

I’ll bargain in the cruelest way I know:

A glimpse.  Bittering forces stars to listen

Let it last a month, a season, such a love

I’ll take it for a full year if I can,

A full year sounds very nice

And if then it must end, I’ll let go

I promise to be brave.

I will be brave

In defeat, brave in the severing.

I’ve known braveness in anger:

In their fortune,

How others squandered years of time

With you-

Why?

Live without discovery, not giving.

You.  Oh!

Perhaps one day…

Sharing even briefly a handful of infinity

And if not, I will dream:

I am awake in this dream

And I have fantasized of everything,

Even the necessity for tangible wealth,

Always an annoying detail

To pester romantic hearts.

I wager, for the tangible

Small, finite digits will suffice:

I have

Enough to buy us freshly baked loaves

Imported cheese and olives,

Enough to build a hearth from weathered fieldstone

And dress our bed with perfumed sheets, soft and smooth.

We’ll need sandalwood scented soap,

Pencil, pen, and paper,

A computer if we must.

We’ll get seeds for our garden

And splurge on a few hybrid perennials.

Candles also.  To light away the dusk.

That should do it for necessities.

The luxuries we will invoke together

As we embrace in the dark.

You’ll blow out the candles, smiling, one by one,

Together we will conjure a different fire

Its flames of inextinguishable desire

Fueled by a wealth

Of love.

INTO WILDERNESS

I took stock of everyplace

I had been,

Everywhere I had touched.                             

I imagined going back to my

Old haunts  

Carefully erasing my fingerprints.

Some were covered by layers

Of dust or mold

Others showed traces of regret

Most had fissures filled with rust-

Red, angry scales

Which formed as I befriended the dispassionate.   

These embossments rendered me untouchable

A cruel and a just punishment:

Sidelined for being an apparition of myself.  

I wished for clear surfaces devoid of my history

A thorough polishing

With an obliterating magical cloth.

No, I did not want to disappear.

Relentless sky

Wilderness unfolding in complexity

Sand and foam hard as flesh

Searise mountains

Rockboned the scented land, awaited embracing.