listening

this early morning

all quiet in here

just me and God

and lovestruck robins singing

in the echoes lof darkness

while streetlights stand their lonely hours

waiting for the sun

listening

listening.

-

me and God, tea and cigarettes

a light coming on across the street

in this very deepest part

of the morning.

-

lovestruck robins

singing - singing

God and me and streetlights

wrapped in silent wonder

listening in the quiet

listening.

-

and it seems

all in an instant,

dawn and

an end to our silent sentinel

God and me

starting the day

again.

-

the streetlights keep their silence

and crows wake up to find

the little ones

the lovestruck ones

have stolen away with the morning.

-

streetlights and me and God

together,

perpetual need,

silent still - once again

our love has sown the seed.

-

-

-

4 May 1995

Heather

kitchen light in dark night,

a Christmas package opened,

a picture, black and white,

at least thirty years old and you,

then, but immediate,

your smile and your hair, your face and your perfect body -

big shirt and cutoffs and fat sunglasses

and femininity unpretentious, beauty unconscious -

I fell in love with you, struck dumb at seventeen,

as you stood, exactly as I look at you here in this picture,

young

gorgeous

sexy

and I knew I couldn't be sure you were real

unless I touched you

unless I brushed my hand against yours in shy passing by.

and so I did, quiet, stumbling a little as I came close

pretending not to notice you there, as you smiled at me;

and did you jump just a little, like I did, when I touched you

so lightly

so gently?

I was so quickly sure, but I wonder -

could you have had any idea, all those years ago,

that I'd never know another as I walked through life,

never another as I knew you in that very moment -

so sure, as youth can be, that I'd love you until I died?

and now sent to me from you

still far away but drawing closer every day,

my Peace in a photograph - my heart opened

my love wakened

as fresh as when we were children -

as new,

as moving as it was

the first time I touched your hand.

-

-

24 December 2002