don't go away

it's raining, and though i cannot share the sound or the smell with you, i can share thoughts, memories of summers past and expectations of days and nights to come. rain is like a gentle friend, and gentle friends are good ones to have. even a heavy downpour is still graceful, still just as it should be. i have not yet been swept away. i have not been displaced by sudden waves. if i had, perhaps i would feel differently, but as it is, rain is my sole companion tonight, and a good one. it does not listen, though; only asks to be heard. as i have so many things to tell, but really nothing to say, that may be just right...

basically

i will try not to share too many mundane bits. but sometimes, that is what life is. and that is often what makes it lovely. something simple, unexciting to anyone but me. a sound, a movement, a light, different from (or maybe quite the same as) every other of its kind. i won't tell you to notice its beauty. if you didn't, you probably won't. but if i must be the one to set it before you, i will do so gladly.

a little vanity is alright, i suppose...

to you

to you who have never seen my face,

every kindness and grace

fall around you.

the song near my window

never seems to cease

and i keep wishing

i could send its rising and falling

on to you.

the sky, the wide night sky

bids me to walk out under it,

if only it were still as wide as it once promised,

i would walk to you.

carry this with you wherever you go.

and if you never see my eyes,

they're looking up

for leaves and sun and shadows...

from below, someday from underneath the ground,

this face will rise,

this soul will fly,

and dust like life's sweet breath

will fall around you.

until then, until the end and ever after,

carry this with you wherever you go.

soft light, like cream,

flows through an endless dream,

two drifters know where once was sorrow

never more shall be,

but only grace.

you know my face

and every kindness it endows.

so to this end, i take your hand

and never lightly.

for two faces without names,

we love so rightly.

"now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. now i know in part; then i shall know fully, even as i am fully known. and now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. but the greatest of these is love." 

1 Corinthians 13:12, 13

at the end of the day

if i heard your voice tonight,

i think that i would cry.

some one else's...

a sleepless night

Philip Levine

April, and the last of the plum blossoms

scatters on the black grass

before dawn. the sycamore, the lime,

the struck pine inhale

the first pale hints of sky.

an iron day,

i think, yet it will come

dazzling, the light

rise from the belly of leaves and pour 

burning from the cups

of poppies.

the mockingbird squawks

from his perch, fidgets,

and settles back. the snail, awake

for good, trembles from his shell

and sets sail for China. my hand dances

in the memory of a million vanished stars.

a man has every place to lay his head.