Love Leads Us

We aspire to nakedness.

Is that where life lies,

In an undressed heart?

Do we seek perfection?

Acceptance is not always

Compromise.

Your lips on my cheek,

Your breath in my ear

Birth a longing

That moves my tears to fall.

I am still,

While love flows.

Another inch

And our mouths would meet,

Soft desire pressed against soft desire:

A moment of promise,

Contained in itself,

Leading to nothing -

Not even expectation.

Though love leads us

Into others' arms,

You

Mean I am the best me

I can be.

Still Snowing

Ground of starlight sparkling underfoot,

The only paths exist in memory.

A gentle wind makes a snowman of me,

Bright-eyed and cherry-nosed.

The steps of others litter the way ahead,

Making a mess of the weather's best efforts.

My fingers long to touch so I reach

Bare skin to scoop crystal powder,

Gaze at perfect flakes in half light

While the sky continues to deliver:

The more gifts arrive, the fewer people

Sally forth to find adventure.

I love moving through this stillness.

Hair

Dying gives it new life;
Colour.
Cut short in its prime
Or left to fulfill its potential;
Twisted and shorn;
Clamped in irons;
Dampened down, straightened out,
Neglected, wild, unkempt;
Changed to suit someone's whim;
Deeply conditioned,
Or left to fly free:
It continues to grow regardless.

Edith

With shallow breath she lies
In the still, restless sleep of the dying.
Her tiny body shivers with an agony
I am powerless to cure.
Memories of her lap gently
At the beach of my mind:
A conspiratorial eye winking;
An "ooo no, I don't like that!";
A smile of beauty and connection.
All I have to give her now
Is a gentle hand;
A few kind words;
Attention;
Tears;
Love.

Expectation

Shoulds piled up like rubble;
Left the onlooker
To gaze; wondering.

What was the old building
He had walked or run.....
Passed everyday?

Run.... Now there was a thing
His legs had not tried
In longer than he

Cared. Oh to care as much
Or as little as
The young who saw him

Now and then; held his hand;
One to whom he told
His secret, as he

Once did to the ocean.
Anticipation
Stirred his very bones

And the once dry dust of
A dream he thought dead
Breathed, with lungs of life.

Like Kalahari sands
When rains come at last,
Hope was rekindled.