October Goodbye

for Tom            
           
The heart in decades, spades            
Spilled, filled            
Our moon held water          
In every touch the sea came up           
In eons, night crossings            
Spanning October's goodbye and now            
Sailing dry-eyed apart, our Bedouin barks            
Borne on the outbound crest of a rippling hoop            
Cast from the core of a big bang demise        
To the Fall of our galaxies blooming            
Bloomsday stars pinned us cold between the dome and deep,            
Fixed to our tiny history, tattered means and ends            
As we each lines etched and orbits plowed,            
Space bled vast; black and toothed the deep,           
I watched until your bobbing lantern      
Was swallowed by night,      
Then, lightless begin to row as waters slapped and mocked.      
Will we soon know the frontier of our seas,            
Will waters stampede, exploding froth to naught,            
Will we quickening drop at worlds end?            
           
I grasp a rail, climb hissing rigging crowsnest high,            
Look over my shoulder,  as if.         
Winds whip my hair, slow-rolling leviathans glint fathoms below            
The sweep of their placid eye stirs and churns the ether        
Blending and crooning echoes of our time,    
Bending petals of watercolor strains,      
They broadcast  a rippling doppler tune of memory,      
Stealthy the chorus amplifies, I am paralyzed gazing    
As pluming inkblood memory in water spreads     
I am again the Satin Woman, languid in an opium lair          
The water moon and memory enter and will have their way    
Dingy sheets, low burning lamp  
Parting the sultry evening curtains lifting sighing restless heaving            
Returned without leave, a snaking Moonflower nightbloom scent.         
Once, we lay tangled jeweled with sweat and spent,        
On a floating lily pad all unaware of change      
Stealthy smuggler up and over the garden gate            
Dogs twitch and whimper before the flickering grate            
Candles flag, babes root and suckle harder            
The Banshee of regret is passing over,          
Her silken footprint hangs, she flourishes glassclear skirts  
Razor slicing scars, adorned again in scarlet drops         
Murderous coal-eyed Spanish dancer, dissolves in air  
Thieving, haunting, hunting...nothing is there.            
           
I ponder you still in my whistling dark            
Breathing short measure            
Stars drop, comets trudge, grandmothers toss and sigh            
Yet, rosy-fingered dawns rub morning eyes,            
And I treasure wonders you sketched on my chart.            
A voyage dreamt, heads bent in navigation      
Crowned in a orb of lamplight, laughing            
Plans to best the Hoary Serpent, Hungry Dog and UnderToad,            
Plans to row brave in tandem,          
To sleep safe each night on our life raft lily pad,          
Land hands clasped on verdant sand.            
Does your glass scan still for my sail?            
           
We rode our Nightwolf, outpaced pressing stars,            
Skating the face of the deep.            
In the bones now, She who we feasted        
With no thought to provision for winter,           
Lean, loping, longing, true            
A waning loyal messenger, grey muzzled, still our servant          
I turn and cannot bear the moon          
Burned prints dance multiplied in sight          
Birthing cry all unwilling battering the tidebreak I have forged            
Crosscurrent battle in my belly to sing, not grieve            
Our shining lupine whelp          
Under every October moon newborn still, trotting, crossing          
She takes one fatal look over her shoulder        
Seed in the mouth, start over again           
Still she laps light from our glowing chalice            
Still she howls the orphaned tale of us.