"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.
