Watching

There it was, that little voice saying,
"To dance and dream and live and die!"

Opening up avenues of possibility
once again, small in-roads to take

me Wherever and Whenever
and whatever happens, the ground

is steady beneath my feet
and my head is steady

beneath the stars.

Memories

There it was, walking through the rain:
a signpost, leading me down old avenues
of where We once existed.  I walked close
to the theatre where we did our second show
together; raced out one night to get a cab
to see some music on the waterfront,

where you took the best pictures
we probably have of Us as an Us:
you leaning on me, smiling towards
camera, me gently gazing upon you.
We missed getting in front of the stage
and so stood on the outskirts, quietly

bopping our heads to song after song,
enjoying the slow-tempo-ed southern
rock, which gently rocked us to sleep
later on, quoting beautiful nights
and waterfront sunsets staring
out at Manhattan.  A left turn then,

up 2nd now, St Marks Place, the Tahini
place late one night and your best friend's
love dilemmas.  The small Russian vodka
bar, 2 streets down, you called me from one night
because you knew I would love it and told me,
before it all started, you would take me there

and one day you did and we listened to a foreign
music on an electric piano and drank rainbow-flavored
vodkas, sparkling like rain in the sun.  Rain
through streetlights and a storm on your front
porch, sitting Buddha-like under the eaves,
watching the wind tear apart Astoria;

making love in the night then, underneath the stars,
keeping the toothpaste out of the tent
because of bears, chased by moose
through the dark, canoeing to an old spot,
laying down a towel and making love under the sun,
our small movements echoing the soft wind

around us.  Swimming in a cold northern lake
that took us too long to get to; constant
conversations in wine bars; beer spills
and jazz piano at 4 am; poems and poetry
and music and dancing in midsummer
because we found it all together once;

and like all memory, is now faded
to a sepia-toned idealism that is easier
to miss than the shades of grey reality
of true existence.  Idealism, therefore,
will dictate tonight's memories,
and perhaps tomorrow, they will move on.

Hilltop (From Maine Poems)

The dab of fog on the lake

looked like a chilly ghost

floating just above dawn.

I sipped the morning air,

consciously aware

I had not done this

in a long while.

The hill was impossible.

I did not even attempt

to jog it.  I just walked,

warming my legs up

in the crisp autumn light.

The trailhead was as it

always was, a signboard,

a road, and blue marks

leading me up the mountain.

I knew this was a mistake

when I came up here

after the baby died, when

you were still hidden

in your eggshell of grief,

painting our stainless steel life

a drabber shade of grey.  

I had little pity for that,

though I had plenty of grief

myself and tried so hard 

to share it with you.  

Eventually, you moved

back to your parents' home

and then started therapy there.

But that was later.

Right now, I was heading up the trail,

my lungs beginning to burn,

my mind gasping for reality,

my legs gasping in pain.

Grief, like dawn, broke through

and followed me up the trail,

pushed me as if I were a baby

taking my first steps in an uneven world. 

I raced grief, all 1.5 miles

up the mountain,

and when I got to the top,

I passed out.  

I dreamed our first date,

walking gently through the park, 

holding hands, sharing a kiss

and two secrets,

one from me, 

one from you.

I awoke to a full sun, 

a burn already developing

on my face, where wrinkles

formed around my eyes

from sleepless nights 

watching the empty crib

fade slowly into memory.

I still loved you, though

it was hard to articulate that.

I think we both found it difficult

to believe there was love

in a world where life

becomes a heart valve

developing wrong.

Coming back down the mountain,

I was struck with a cold wind,

and realized winter would soon

find its way here, maybe even today.

I knew this was a mistake

coming up here when the baby died,

but sometimes one must go

to the top of the world

to ask important questions.   

I would head back to New York the next day, 

take the long bus ride home,

and sit next to your bed. 

I would tell you the story

about how I fought grief

on top of a mountain,

how grief knocked me out

and I dreamed of you.

I would ask if you remembered my secret.

Of course,

you would say from between the pillows,

But not right now.  Not now.

A Beautiful Night

"...It's good for everybody

to hurt somebody once in a while.

Things I do to people I love,

shouldn't be allowed..."

-Adam Duritz

I sounded like a first grader,

sobbing into my paper cup

as my snow cone lay spilled

on the ground. It was easier

back then, not knowing

all of the crackerjack philosophy

that makes adults do the things

they do to each other.

I think back on past relationships,

and realize I have photographs

to prove we loved each other.

I'm not sure either of us needed

proof, so we never ended up

taking any.  Perhaps the need

to keep each other's souls' separate,

like wax paper between

chocolate chip cookies,

meant that photographs,

so oft accused of stealing souls,

were an unnecessary addition

to our complicated lives.

Perhaps we realized the limelight

was a treasure of our selves,

and together we discovered how

instead to be comfortable. 

We rediscovered Kevin Costner

one of those comfort nights

and fell asleep to his un-acting.

We cooked and became adept

domestics, finding an ease

and a passion that disguised

our own futile pursuits.

Disguises are dangerous

and like rotting fruit,

eventually show up on the skin,

which is why I remember first

grade and my snow cone,

rainbow-colored like a sunset,

melting slowly on the ground

as dusk settled.  I could smell

autumn in the dry wind kicking up.

The lamps were already lit

for the coming evening. 

It became a beautiful night.

Love Letter #1

She sold me like a river
from under my feet, a long
winding dreaming winding
beat by beat through tall grass
from old mountains, long trails

of old men's beards and young men's
tears, lost little dreamers in the sun
as I watch them all drift and die
and drift and die like the world
around me when I left you for the last time

under February skies.  I slithered away,
quietly undulating over the ocean,
finding no rest in the world of the way
back again, leaving trails of steam in my wake,
little cumulo-nimbus clouds drifting behind me

to rain and catch up to me one summer Saturday
that began with too much and too little
and sleep wouldn't come and you wouldn't leave
and I was left feeling, for the first time,
the hole in my heart where you once lay,

curled around me like a cat,
like your small cat on the memorial Monday
who for some reason didn't seem like he
recognized me and perhaps that was for the best
perhaps I couldn't, like most lovers, come back

to you at some point and say I'm sorry, or at least
I'm not at that point, though I desperately want to be.
I want to forget you, I want get over you, but wanting
and body is something entirely different, and it seems
I put you everywhere, little roadmaps in my joints

to remind  me of you and us in all our happiness
so that when I stub my toe I can think of only
the pool and hot of a Maryland day, when your
grandmother died and I helped you laugh
it all away.  I don't want you back,

I just want it to be ok.

Ghost

The postcard: a picture 

of the Athens Plaka at dawn;

a quiet before the reverie.

Your face then: 

gasping at the Parthenon; 

tasting, for the first time, a real tomato; 

eating too much lamb, the grease 

dripping down your chin.

Teatro Dionysus, 

breathing in the air of the ancients,

your beautiful dark hair flowing in the wind.

Bubbling laughter down the dark streets

of the empty Plaka after midnight, wine flowing.

Your sunbathed loveliness, dancing

in the Greek windows of dawn, 

quietly charming the great old civilization

and painting its pale loveliness

with your summer colors.  

I dream of us somewhere,

kissing in the quiet, slowly falling away

from the world, seeking out Byron's

signature at the Temple of Poseidon;

sharing uzo on a rooftop,

making love in the Mediterranean far into the night.

By the Sea

It was like a cannon on the wind
thrown far and wide by a tornado.
We all ended up in the same space,
the same small patch of ground
to call our own; to live in

as we watched each other grow
and flower and propagate,
becoming inviting to passing bees
and ornate women with lace gloves
on their porcelain hands, drifting

by to pluck us daintily by the elbows
and place us, small though we were,
on bookshelves and canvases adorning
their homes.  We were on a hunger strike
we knew nothing of until we met one another,

and with our hands inside our hearts,
found the cool interior beneath
the hot skin sand, throwing handfuls
of each other into the morning spring sky,
melting into glass, where passing light

might make rainbows of us all.
How small we will be together,
in our colors of happiness,
living life made golden by the sea
and the sand and the salt of each other

thrown lazily into the sky,
dim shadows of what we once were
disappearing into the midday sun.