you have music
and I have words
you are the sky
and I am the earth
a moon
a tree
and all that’s in between
that’s us
a picture on an easel
a song heard outside a window
trust me
I won’t let you fall
I’ll hold you up
my arms are strong
a heart of wood
a thinning crown
this seasoned girl
will hold her ground
I am not afraid!
I have lived with death
so long that it’s a friend,
a flower growing in a garden
yet to be discovered–
a song unwritten.
This was meant to be,
you and I,
this never meeting,
this always being met.
I’ll stand beside you,
I’ll walk the walk
until the road grows steep
and flowers bend their heads.
I’ll be the love that lets you go,
the love that never leaves;
I’ll live a thousand lifetimes
and die a thousand deaths
until I find you in the paper trees,
the silver moon, the polished stone.
I’ll be all autumn and all spring,
the seasons of my love will never cease,
and I will bring you home again
where home has never been.
I knew that
it would burn
but I wanted
one more chance
to feel the heat.
Fire is as fire
does–it turns
to ashes all
it loves.
Up the narrow
path I went
riding shotgun
on my art–
the god ahead
was not a god
but just a man.
Inside the flame
I could not hear
whose name
he called;
I thought it mine
but I was wrong–
the song was beautiful
but it was not my song.
A woman scorned
is just a woman
scorned but I am
so much more;
and so, I’ll keep
my hand inside
the flame
and he will never know
the stillness of my fire,
the beauty of my name.
I think of women
sitting at their looms
and sunny afternoons
spent reading fairy tales
I think of red-haired boys
in cowboy hats and sailor suits
running home from school
this poem’s for me it’s not for you
I say goodbye not
because you weren’t
there but because
you didn’t try
you lied and that’s the truth
these are the things of my life
an empty loom
a red-haired boy
a memory of you
goodbye to love
it wasn’t real
I made it up
to help me feel alive
now spindle cells have stopped me dead
and I cannot pretend
that what I hold is thread
I catch it but
it will not stay;
this thing that
slips away so
easily–like sand
it cannot hold itself.
The red-haired boy
becomes a son,
becomes a brother,
becomes a friend,
becomes a lover,
becomes a husband,
becomes a man.
With him–
a smile is
everything.
He loves words
and so he married
an East-Coast girl;
they keep to
themselves–
blue on blue.
The cowboy who went to sea
taught us everything–
Devil Dogs,
Yankee Doodles,
Umberto’s Pizza,
Big Blue,
Bohack’s sneakers,
Zeusgazette.
Who writes poems about such things?
And so we fight,
and so we pray,
and so we believe;
he will defeat the
long slow thing
that wants him for itself,
our red-haired boy
whom we so love.
why them
why those
two girls
why that house
with the gray porch
and a mimosa growing
in the front yard
the old man
the apple tree
the factories
the gas station
the seven-eleven
the neighbor’s dog
nothing made
a difference
could you
hear them at night
could you
see them in the window
waiting to be seen
waiting to be loved
did you hear them
singing songs
writing poems
pretending to
be someone else
one heard voices
the other one
starved herself
hoarded pills
kept a butcher
knife underneath
her dress
she meant
business
that one
a cat has nine lives
a little girl has only one
Everything
happens
in the fall;
all loss
is in a leaf–
yellow and gold
to the ground.
Even
tall buildings
must fall;
three thousand
hearts and you
in one hour–
autumn.
Two things
juxtaposed,
whose pain
is greater
the leaf’s
or mine;
Falling,
falling,
falling
into the
bright
September
sun–
everything
happens in
the fall.
waiting for something
that’s finally come
there’s an art to that
that wanting
the hard wood of it
no sound except
my own breathing
not sure if the
sound of it is mine
cell rubbing against cell
transfer paper against stone
names dates relationships
the artifacts of a life
my life dreaming itself
It’s all about death
Hieroglyphics on my skin
numbers letters signs
signs and wonders
all against my skin
burning into my flesh
words everywhere
none making sense
lost love
lost life
what mattered most was the dream
did I dream it all
family friends art life
was it worth standing still
is this what Eurydice knew
when she hoped he would turn around
not to go back
not to have to live again
the constant feeling of failure
the waiting
the questions
is it here
is it today
will it be tomorrow
how long
how much longer
and then it’s here
and you’re not afraid
just sad
waiting does that to you
and then the god touches
you on your shoulder
and says he has turned around
I love you like
the wing must
love the bird.
No grounded
things for me–
just you, music,
words and
paper trees.
What comes
down must
go up, and
so I’ll join
you in the sky
to fly beneath
a silver moon,
to soar among
the cirrus clouds.
if I told you I’d be there
would you find
the wooden bench
the white camellias
the cherry tree
would you ask my name again
and lift your face into the sun–
exactly as you did that day
would we walk along the garden path
beneath the overarching trees
and listen to the insect’s song
the thrum of things so small
that only lovers hear their
extracorporeal hum
we are too late for love
too late for all the silly things
the longing
the sweet regret
the silences
the sudden rush of words
and yet we’re here
too old to hold each other’s hand
too young to walk apart
if I told you I’d be there
would I wait alone
beneath an autumn sun
would I look up and see you there
beside me on the wooden bench
a white camellia in your hand
rlmcdermott 