fruit and food feeding the heart that stood at the window in the night cold years away from your own skin the world a hard floor and hunger and turning around theres a face you remember eyes gently smiling into your hands and the smell of coffee cumin and pine trees water running under the snow teaching us to love what we dont yet understand.
its home wherever we go embracing strangers for their sad stories lives lost on elevators and killing fields like we were the angels we said we were a long time ago. your hand is home your small mouth that says what could never not be said anymore and the eyes that waited for some sign in the lost night watching the snow watching me waiting with so much to say an open palm that holds everything.
into me you bring lifetimes of Light and oracles fed on blood and fire speaking of Great Love. into me you come familiar and welcome the spring rain the summer moonlight the train you draw me away from you teach me how to play again. to want to be again. you give me back myself you make it safe to return. in the shell of my life you gently place a pearl i slipped into your pocket a lifetime ago. it is luminous perfect it is what i thought lost lost and gone to the bottom of time but its been with you all the while and gently it settles into the breast of the shell and becomes blood a beating heart where for such a lonely while there was only a grey dove in a dusty cage. on the edge of the night we set the dove free.
the words dont choke in my throat. the joy isnt stillborn. its like a hidden spring. before me behind me above me beneath me the Light in your form starlight in a paperbag i carry clutched to my breast the heat leading me home. and in secret darkness we reveal fragile plans thirteen moons and a boat cut away from the shore. we trace eachother in deep morning sweetness rising silent simultaneous this stitching together of whats been left behind by the ravenous blind.
as if it were only a matter of time the infinite variables adjusting two trajectories toward some miraculous reunion. we stumble laughing through the dark of uncertainty glad for each other over this threshold and into a more beautiful now that makes sense at long last together like something revealed in the spring beneath an eternity of snow something sweet and spry reaching toward the sun reaching with love and wonder into its own existence. well rested, lessons learned, heart open.
the life of the world becomes a gift we are surprised at painlessness and understanding. this is how its supposed to be, we suppose. two weary travellers looking up from the road to find themselves at home. angels on the bridge over the valley trees and stones books and bowls all in common and extraordinary.
behind me i leave energies and talismans, i leave painted sheets and echoes. i leave a space to fill with my lifetime soon returning never more to wander empty and bereft. never more to wonder where i belong. we are generous in our patience and wealthy in our faith. we are sated in our language and in Love are made whole.
"When I am troubled in the night he comes to comfort me.
He wills me thru the darkness and the empty child is free to take his hand his sacred heart the heart that breaks the dawn.
Amen. And when I think I've had my fill he fills up again."
-Patti Smith