Seeds of Doubt

Words sometimes skip like stones
across the surface of a limpid lake.
Each kiss makes rippling waves,
peaks and valleys that reverberate.

Or they can surf like a leaf
fallen from a weeping willow,
connecting all points
between here and there.

They may whisper like feathers
across skin warmed by an evening fire,
or a glass of brandy's liquid heat.

Convey love,
banish doubt and fear.
Those words warm me
from the inside out
and outside in.

But when contempt scorches all in its path,
cuts swaths into the ice,
carves an abyss between you and I,
do I distrust the words and the love they bring?

If I forgive you and you forgive me,
is that bridge enough to walk across
the fallow field, plowed under,
burned in the winter,
awaiting seeds of love in spring?