Aperture

[font=Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Grande]I        
       
What soul is this diminishing orb      
this cratered shell of ebb imploding        
into the thumbnail of God to map      
the foreign country of your brow        
       
Our bloodline erupts volcanic ash      
down the mountain, a burning flow        
of warrior gathering to the west      
to defend sacred bones and water      
       
Outside our eastern window olden      
shadows side-step a shoreline of snow      
while the nocturnal gravity of your eyes        
hold my orbit saying, “there will be blood”      
       
Memory bursts its dam of dormancy –      
eons of ancestral clans circle the trees        
a rite into the ghostly forest of sacrifice      
of native tribes and forgotten graves        
       
We don’t say “the time has come to go”      
beyond this tsunami of dawn saturating        
your path to the reservation, we say nothing        
we know the contents of our contract        
       
We always have        
       
II.        
       
The airport is chaos, pandemonium      
protesters against the regime, fighting      
for family and strangers as though kin      
once we were all aliens in a strange land        
       
The freezing wind slaps my resolve awake        
my hand is lost in yours at an arm’s length        
pulling me toward the terminal entrance     
you stop, turn to cover me with your blanket      
       
No words are spoken before you disappear      
down the gateway’s throat - behind me a stampede        
of people are demanding justice, before me      
emptiness and the imprint of your kiss        
       
As the metal bird ascends its pursuit        
of westward sun, wing flaps reflect flares      
back onto this counterclockwise turning      
of eastern dusk ever-farther from you –      
       
Right before the descending horizon        
stretches open its predatory mouth      
to swallow you wholly – who knows        
who’ll survive this coiled black snake      
posed to strike any given moment        
       
III.        
       
When your teacher is slated for death      
your testament is living what you learned      
       
"Yesterday was glory and joy. Today,        
a blackened burn everywhere.        
On the record of my life, these two days        
will be put down as one."      
       
IV.        
       
Last night at midnight, I saw you        
lighting stars along the westward path      
as if you knew how alone I truly was      
as if you knew everything I've done      
has been to survive a separation        
neither of us asked for or understood      
       
As I understand now that you, too,        
need the warmth and hope of presence    
beyond the cold demands of home         
       
Those tiny stars, visible only to Love      
gasping to catch their breath and live      
are us within this alien flesh trying      
to remember to breathe - to believe      
what brought us here will also return        
       
I am conscious of your absence        
which means you’re not absent at all      
Your echo reverberates homeward –      
Everything that shines is passed on        
       
Darkness inevitably surrounds or lands      
on the aperture that opens the beyond        
~