Monday, December 14, 2015

The Many Names of Love









He called me mariposa,
as if my chrysalis had disappeared
overnight, its wispy tendrils drooping,
then falling away into shadow.

He called me gentle bird,
as though my song was sugar-sweet
and soft, a moist whisper cast aloft
into remnants of dusk.

He called me beloved,
as if his tender words
would shame any onslaught of tragedy, 
somehow keep me safe from sorrow's clutches.

He called me querida,
as though such fervent declarations
could make a thousand miles evaporate,
bring me to his distant shore.

He calls me his only, his own -
I answer his embrace by gathering 
succulent flowers into a fragrant harvest
to leave scattered upon our doorstep,

perhaps to delay the coming of darkness, 
perhaps to hasten the arrival of dawn.





Tuesday, July 21, 2015

poem for this moment






"Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, 
but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary 
as bread in the pockets of the hungry." 
                                                                                — Mary Oliver





How I have craved 
the lavender of your laughter,
the wisteria of your weariness 
when you lay your jacket aside,
done as is the day ...

and then you come to me.

How you have saved me
from clinging vines of chaos,
from numb emptiness of stars 
too long dead, their light lingering
as an afterthought, a cold memory.

Your music wrapped each chord around me,
a comfort in darkness, a smile I could not see,
a gleaming jewel waiting only for sunlight
to describe its edges, its facets, its dominions;
we are created from stone and fire, 
composed of water and air ...

and then I come to you.