String of pearls

"And that that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space."
Kahlil Gibran

***

Why do stars fall
and comets have tails?
Why are there meteor showers?
How vast the array of the sidereal heavens
Set for times, and signs, and seasons.
How measure the sweep,
And the breadth of it all –

Who can answer the timeless questions…?

Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades,
or loose the bands of Orion?
Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season?
or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?
Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven?
canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?

***

And what of me?

I love to go out on warm, clear nights
And look up at the stars.
Meteor showers,
eclipses,
the constellations –
There’s a vastness and depth to space that captivates me.
And I wonder as the stars reel along their celestial course
Through black velvet hush of the night
Do they remember all our earthbound wishes ~
And the dreams they helped take flight?
Or how I discovered their beauty
Reflected
Within your eyes?

And what are wishes but dreams that are beyond us.
Just as such is the beauty of stars.

But perhaps tonight you’ll look up at the heavenly diamonds
and your eyes will linger a while as do mine
I hope your heart will find
Wherever you are
and wish as I
upon my wishing star.

***

It’s the soft deep of night and I lie awake in the stillness with thoughts of you coming easier than sleep.

You answer the stillness of my silences with feelings not heard and yet are the reach beyond my reaching, the distance beyond my words. For the words I’d speak would be but soft as the caress of my breath upon your skin…and yet, urgent and demanding in breath’s rise and fall as my kisses upon your lips ~

…which haunt my waking thought.

Time and distance mean little to sleepless memories.
For your memory with night’s passage calls forth a longing in my soul
and I am lost in the depths of my feelings for you.
And I remember a poem I had put with a picture you had drawn.  

Where did your hand let go of mine for I reach but your not there.
The stillness whispering…

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

And how do I answer Browning’s keen
which encompass all the soul felt feelings to which I never could give voice –
and yet I’m alone.
Alone in their truth and neither the peace of sleep nor hopes will come,
anymore than words in answer.

But I remember still and with advantage the depths of your green eyes
for I see them now,
as then,
with love and my sweetest dream is that I might kiss them to sleep again.

Love is such an ethereal thing like spark which lights the soul aflame
that we cannot trust words to say,
save for three our heart convey ~ 

I love you

***

The twin shackles of distance and time
Cannot prevent or confine
But as sunlit highlights of your hair
Strays the eye a moment’s stare
So do these too,
Distance and time
To memories' whisper pause my mind

In imaginings…

The breeze is but your breath on my skin
And the sun but dim
To the light of your eyes
And all the world both curve and line
But fade to you
The love that’s mine.

***  

What do hours measure when they’re empty?
Do we seek to fill a day,
An hour or a minute –
Of what is there not enough?
By any measure,
Is it not love?  
We see the emptiness of time pooling around us
Reflected in our quiet desperations
And seek to hold onto others
That we might not drown.

Yet we know not the measure of our want.
What do we truly want?
Others cannot answer for us nor can we for others.
We are a poor ill-fitting partnership
and yet our weakness draws us near.  
and from weakness we draw strength
and from the drawing we find meanings
but can never fully give
anymore than fully receive
For we set bounds upon the boundless
So there stands a gulf even among the closest
Telling us
Emptiness is also a need
That we might have room to grow
And that’s what we truly seek
That love might bloom
Or has the tide receded so far from shore
That it can turn no more

***

I look to see the road rise up to touch the pale blue of sky hedged by trees which frame it's either side, aflame with autumn’s fire. And I rise too on the rolling hills as I drive but no matter, the blue and road are always before me and I cannot escape the earthly bonds though my spirit feels at one and I would seek to soar.

My mind takes wing in daydreams and imaginings and would be at one with all things but I cannot change the course I'm on any more than worry about frontage roads and wither they go ~ though it parallels, it serves different need, as do I, from the far sweep of dreams to but stay and play my part.

My small role

In the vast sea of life around me and though I would touch it all I cause but a ripple in the pond and know not the farthest shore nor can see beyond the far horizon except in dreams and imaginings when spirit soars and no is an unheard word.

***

The magic of children is boundless imagination.

The tragedy of adults is they seek to forget.

And
Like a broken strand of pearls lie my memories of you

There are moments shared in heart and memory
Left graven upon my soul
And shattered as glass upon the floor
For memory or fragmented dream always come back to haunt
The bittersweet in me

***

In quiet hours does the distant voice of memory still whisper?
And half-remembered,
Do you realize it’s mine?
For my heart is true and has not forgotten ~
And calls to you in my dreams so many nights.

Perhaps one night you’ll forget to forget
Lost in the silvery call
Of a night bird’s song.
And evening breeze and twilight
Will nudge your memory;
And,
In quiet reverie you’ll chance to think of me.

Will you wonder if I remember?
Seems what I forgot to remember
Is to remember to forget
For there was a time of possibilities
And might have been
And I take solace there

And I still remember
You
Shimmering iridescent memories – yet, not as beautiful as your eyes

***

Dreams don’t speak to me with words
They move me with vignettes
Of everything about you that says
Always
To me
The light in your eyes,
The feel of your touch
The crush of your lips against mine

Of such are my dreams and wishes

But I have not kept the faith
With myself or any other.
Where is the mountain I have climbed?
The sky which I have soared,
Or the cabin I have built on forested lake side shore?
Just the drifting smoke from bridges I have burned
Funeral pyres of my past.

For where others have walked in the light;
In moonlit luminosity
I have wandered in the night.
And find myself a pilgrim and a stranger in a strange land
Bowing with the masses before the altar of convention

And yet -
I would not die contented
Grant that I might dream yet one more dream
That soul might yearn in discontent
Stretched at last upon the bed
Than die with remote in easy chair.

Where is freedom of speech to say what one would say?
That I might see beauty and say in honesty

If but for briefest moment
My eyes met yours or you caught mine
"Kindred spirit
Beauty speaks desire
And I say this with a kiss
Than waste another word."

Love me that I might live...