so much more

I awoke this morning with the stream of my heart song in full flood

And I thought of you.

Is this a love song?

A poem, a cry for help, a blood let, a pressure valve, a fire hose…

The wild battle cry of my deepest nature?

The thrashing of the old ways…?

Everything is uncertain.

I am often wrong.

Yesterday I was delightfully wrong.

People were kind.

Feedback came and it was good.

I had cringed in fear of it, hiding my face.

You, on the other hand, leap about

(Like my brothers, in the grip of making us all laugh)

Cavorting steadily more wildly until something gets broken,

Grandstanding all that’s worst in you - the grossest, most despicable,

Vilest, basest, ugliest,

Parading bad decisions, drunken waywardness, brutal language--

Take that. Ha! Now, how can you still be here?

No wonder you’ve attracted love that you despise.

And me?

I watched you in action and in the lulls, I saw you,

Glimpsed fleeting and star-like in the dark, I caught your eye.

I saw your heart.

I can’t unsee it.

We saw each other in stillness, and I loved you with simple clarity.

(But then, I’m often wrong.)

I want to wake up with you but not all the time.

I want to long for you sometimes and you not to be here.

I want to touch you in the softness of late night when the first bird might sing at any moment.

I want to waken you with the blaze of my wild heart reaching out to you

But not every day.

I want to ring and find you busy sometimes

Doing mysterious things unknown that make me doubt.

I want the space to open out between us

And I want this to panic and craze me and to be able to master myself without you.

I want to force myself not to try to fix and pin you to avoid the storms,

To let you be at arm’s length

To let you come and go

To stand alone.

I want to talk to you in the day,

In the cool quiet of no alcohol, outside, a crispy day,

Your dog recognising the clear good of my heart.

I want to ask you to help me stay true to this heart.

I think you could.

And if you said you would, I could trust you to do it.

I like you.

My heart leaps up in rebellion at the understatement.

So far, I understand.

But there’s you, too. And I wonder if you know

This woman likes you so much more than

So much more

And I don’t know if you want her to.

The soft animal of her body loves what it loves. It isn’t up to you.

The clear little bird dripped its honeyed nectar into my ear before first light.

I heard a golden song – a clear heart seeking dart.

And I thought of you with all my heart.

sept 2020