It’s lonely here tonite
and all alone inside
my skin
while music plays
and pretty soon
the air is filled with
shadow shades
that sing,
lament, remind me of
my failure to be what
you wanted, what
they wanted.
And there…
in yon wood there
sits the bear
in silverlight
there in the rising
dark and that bear
part and parcel
of itself and
of the wood
but me…alone
inside this skin
well, it’s lonely
here tonight
inside this skin
inside this skin
there dogwood lingers
lost in long and cooling nights
side by side with sassafras
brooding over browning grass
and sumac stands
with red oak and sheds
leaves in broad daylight
while maples paint
in crimsons, scarlets, purples
yellow brush upon the air
and splashed across
the transom of my heart.
winds and rain come now
and colors muddle, fade to dull
and make their ready to fall down
into the soil dark that croons
and calls them to their fall.
and I am shattered in this fade
of yellow birch and maple red
the flower of spring is there unmade
and frost laments now come in lace
and nibble at my tender face
and precious profound beauty
here and gone and me
that hardest of hues to hold
as my life falls in leaves of days
is here and gone in just a wink
and nothing gold can stand untouched
and how is it, Eternal One
can love so strong and fierce this shade
who passes from the day to night
and fades into the mists?
And all this time
I thought I was
building you up
as you grew
and became.
I really never
realized (really)
you were breaking
so unbecoming
and I was failing bad.
It breaks
my heart to
know you were
ripping apart the seams
of our beautiful story.
And now
tatters, shards
shatters, shutters
mutters and
clogged gutters
and it
is too late
at last
I realize
alas.
Touch me
with unconscious hands
Unaware but
not unknowing
Find me
with yearning heart
untroubled in
the mists of time.
For I am here
dying, Love,
dying on
this slum’bring vine
And I know
myself alone
now and in
time to come
“Good people are like candles;
they burn themselves up
to give others light.”
— Turkish Proverb
