Scarcity

It makes me cry when it can't even be thought of
and the touch is the Judas
holding the seeing glass

Wanting

Words unspoken, plenty of conversations about anything else
bodies guarded, much effort to resist the maddening pull
Doubts mushroom, as ever so deepening the knowing of what it is
that delays the partings, blooms into sharing stories,
paints the canvas stroke by stroke, fixes the sadness in our gaze
 That cord that stretches between us is the executioner's noose,
cutting off air supply, the un forgiven trespasses is the caving ground,
the wet blanket that smothers the flames, but not the fire
Only when we speak of un forbidden pleasures, we no longer need
the language of control, of discipline and punishment

Space in  between

You wake up from a dream, but just before
The final thought of letting go has arrived, just before it is announced
The jumping off the cliff, and the mere moments of flying
The setting off on the ocean of change, in the flimsiest raft of hope
The welling of attraction, before the naming of love

Is the space of purity, and pathos tamed
The stilled eternity in the eye of God

Retour a la case depart

Wilted

The dew evaporated this morning,
the colors darkened
The sheen dulling fast
from the withering flowers in my garden
Petals not boasting youth's perfection any more
 yet their fragrance deepens,
as if the understanding of overdue debts
and paying time's demands
layers scent notes with consolatory dimension

It is for them to take center stage now, the upstarts,
the impetuous darling buds of May,
waiting out one more sunset
before the dawn's blooming glory

The face is somber, almost sad, unsuited perhaps for a wedding picture.
 Her beauty narrating her kin's thousand stories.
The brow barely raised, as if with premonitional worry and stoicism, about what is ahead, the mountain of grief to scale.
The lips closed, nary a smile to share with the nuptials' participants.
The complexion unmarred by time or sin, virginal luminescence so readily read.
The unruly tumble of curls, a sign of her obstinate stubbornness.
And the wide forehead, exposed, strong, like her force and courageous resilience.

My mother, on her wedding day, 21 years old.

m OTHER

Manic winds are blowing again
lashing at the distance of us, that grew bigger
slicing the hopes of kind conversation
much less of understanding

Fear is the fire that obliterates
shelter that took years to built
that umbilical cord, invisible, still strangles
the decades of individuation mere sandcastles

in the blowing khamsin