Many Have Loved The Rain

Many have loved the rain.

I alone have loved your fingers,

Whether caressing them with mine,

Kissing them,

Or staring with lovestruck tenderness

As they relaxed at the edge of the bed.

Many have feared the rain.

I alone have feared your vagaries of mind,

Whether dreams that have seized you,

Or passions,

Or simply storms gathering within

That I sit helplessly watching form.

Few embody the rain.

I alone embody the earth,

And will always receive what you give,

Take it within me,

Turn it into as much beauty as I can summon;

Or simply shield myself as best I'm able,

Endure and love,

Because I am wrapped around your lovely heedless fingers.

Darling,

Many have loved the rain.

___________________________

So Dark Is The Night

They said,

Let God's love fill your heart,

And shine on you

With holy light.

But oh.

Oh,

So hard are the hours,

The dead hours I spend without you

And

So dark is the night.

They said,

Let God's love fill your heart,

And shame the devil

With His truth.

But oh,

Oh,

My heart is like shale,

Splintered shale that falls with my tears

Here

Without you.

They said,

Let God's love fill your heart,

Give Him your wounds

To heal them from within.

But oh,

Oh,

Let your nails break my skin,

Your red nails that make me know I'm alive

Screaming

Out my hymn.

They said,

Let God's love fill your heart,

With holy light;

But,

So hard are the hours,

So dark is the night.

__________________________

Our Lady Of The Snows

It was all so bright--

All the futures they said were hers;

Their wind of words stung her eyes,

Our shivering patron of the blind.

No rivers flow here--

No tides, just the cold-cracked moon

Too distant to conjure a saving madness

For Our Lady of Frozen Tears.

Sleep,

In your crystal dream of lovers--

A sky full of wavering willows

Bends over you like a mother.

It was all so lonely--

Not lessened by the dragging cautions

They hauled like sledges of endless noon

Above Our Lady of the Morning.

Ice shimmered across the floes,

Wrapped ad infinitum in ivory blank;

Blood came to seem better than the emptiness

Which afflicted Our Lady of the Snows.

Sleep,

And all a crystal dream supposes,

Will carry you where the willows grow--

Our Lady of the Roses.

__________________________________

Honesty

Honesty and Tactlessness

Are siblings, but not twins--

One lives in solitary pride,

The other stays with friends.

___________________________

Tuesday At The Cider Mill

I could bite into an apple,

And then run it down your summer-darkened shoulder

In a wet kiss.

I could trail my fingertips

Along your ribbed tank as if I were creeping through cat-tails

Like a black tabby.

I could fall in love with you

Any day of the week, as if your long hair were leaves

And I were the breeze.

Kiss me in October,

We'll buy a bag of donuts;

I'll give you my hoodie to wear

And my heart to keep,

When the days grow short

But no less warm for that.

_____________________________

Black-Eyed Susans

There was no one but the black-eyed susans

To see her thighs so smooth and strong

Her feet so lost

And her heart so broken

As she gave herself, a wafer,

On the tongue of the shrouded water.

Fog was a mercy,

Or the turning-away of god

In the memory it both brought and obscured

Of love within reach--

Two girls and the early morning.

Where was I?

Where was anyone, when the water fanned her dark hair like a lover's fingers?

There are mornings,

When I am struck scalding blind,

Deaf without body or blood,

Without lover, without sister,

Without anything but the black-eyed susans

And the foggy invitation of the water's depths.

_______________________________________

Dinner At Josephine's

I watched your fingers in the candle light;

Your rings shone differently at every angle like phases of the moon,

And even your open leather jacket glowed like foxfire

As we sat with only window glass and our shifting reflections

Between us and the rain outside in the street.

It all follows me like fog, you know.

It rises like mist right through me,

And I am the one left wavering, insubstantial,

Remembering the moon

Remembering your fingers

Remembering our single tender kiss--

All I'll ever have

Of you.

____________________