Edges

I watch you dance

a prologue to love

storms

& flights to the sun

and I want to know

what love is

regret & grief

are what I know

they burrow deep

it is the dark interstices

I’m familiar with

the in-betweens

where there is equivocation

one foot firmly out the door

heartache & pain

ordinary as the clothes

you choose to

put on each day

grief & longing

are not so far apart

both elongating

pulled by ones

who don’t look back

distanced, yet connected

we are stars of a new

constellation

yet to be named

yet to be fixed

in the firmament of heaven

It’s not the hard work

of relationship that kills

it is the disappointment

beat beat beating

the flattened place in our hearts

that has no room for charitable thoughts

the escape of hope

from brain cells eroded

by the beat beat beating

grim grief

leading to despair

If we could gather up the edges

pull them tight

stuff the light back in

I promise you

life will grow again

expand

one breath into the next

one day after another

new light leading to new hope

fragile yet tenacious

a reverse gravity

pulling us

stars

into the

firmament of heaven

[Written Sunday, August 21, 2011]