VIII. strength
sourced
prelude
without cover and left to cold, the dormant edges stay frayed and exposed. it seeps into our center cores, freezing passage of blood and air. soon we no longer felt the wind, as much without as within. we faded into that gray space, before the next breath could be made. can you revive my dying parts, before I’m left with permanent mark? my old desire to disappear speaks aloud and comes more near. stay with me on this coldest night, I can’t forget how to see dawn’s light —
I. sender
for how many do the dreams cling unnoticed
holding over like morning fog into noon
I could turn and face them with eyes open
and everything dark would rush out
like meltwater of spring.
how many push back on the strength
of the feeling — let the song fade
before it breaks into the heart
now the chords enter my dreams
and I wake with tears streaming
down my face.
how many of us will never say it
simple words, really — I’m sorry, thank you
let me cast them out each day
like flat stones over misty pond
and only know from the ripples
how far they made it —
interlude
fog descends from the outer reach, coaxing vision to the foreground. saturation of absorbed surfaces turn so brown they’re almost black. again it was the end and beginning, and I could feel my grip loosening on time. the days moved through me like a slow creek, a trickle unrushed and kind. soon the old will feel less haunted, and I’ll touch the dried flowers without breaking. pressing each into present song, a tea of deep notes we can drink —
II. in passing
let the fog contain me
as the folded weight of loose clothing
enables an arc of water
within reach of baited breath
and expelled warmth on close chests —
I can feel it rising from ground
those embers I consumed so rapidly
and now germinating so slow
through each ripple of ice and thaw.
now I can put a name to it
and suddenly the narrow hall expands
I can exist here
without rushing to the other side —
postlude
from this secret space, the beating heart awaits to receive the tone that sets song into motion. I can hear it traveling by ocean’s current pull, directed by the warm and cold, those factors of the sun and core. when it arrives you’ll feel it in the blood vessels in expansion without needing to run —
III. enfold
this time the purple dawn
showed us the inverse of frost
and from the undersides of each crystal
I saw how shadow is birthed.
when the angles are long enough to rest in
I can tell you their secrets
which are also mine
and we’ll dream of radial symmetries
who have never known divides.
when the ice cracks it sends ripples of sound
deeper than any tone we could make
I let their expanse be a house of no walls
our freedom their endless escape —
— m.a.r.