Rainbow Songs

It was an evening when
a thousand fireflies lit the air.
The moonlight was streaming
across the fields.
Hearts were dancing, spinning into space.
You were approaching escape velocity,
I was right behind you.
Soon to sink earthward, resting on
the pillow of your breast.

Yesterday the sun was burning,
like a beacon through a storm.
We’ve been given such a short time here.
Let’s fan the flames of desire
until the statues weep.

My love is carving a channel
across your land.
May it be deep and nourish you,
-- a haven for beautiful birds
who trace silent arcs in the sky,
fish of many colors
floating among the reeds.

On these banks the rocks are ancient,
opaque, rounded by wind and time.
We will climb up and over
toward the glowing horizon,
which retreats with our every step,
unattainable and unknowable.

Then one day a boat will carry us
laughing to the sea,
the Sea of Tranquility.
Floating there we glimpse other channels
dug by faceless forces long ago
on the Red Planet,
a lantern hanging from heaven.

Breezes blow and eagles fly
through the fork in the river.
Still this place survives
the onslaught of time
and men who will never learn
to leave well enough alone.

You showed me this sacred space
when spring gave way to summer.
Far off the back roads we shared
a paradise of love.
Our soaring hopes built on lives untested,
many paths were beckoning,
with fingers of sand.
But our tools were primitive,
like cavemen trying to strike a flint.

We didn’t know what we were doing.
Grappling with our shadow demons --
ones that we never knew we had --
then becoming something we feared.

We were too strong for each other,
destined to drift apart.
So began our walkabouts
through the maze of a lifetime.
Fond farewells and vows to stay
in the circle.

Like so many things, corruptible
and impermanent.

Now here you are again.
True was your arrow that pierced my heart so long ago.
Lodged between the bones of memory,
it never decayed.

You are fine; you always were
– and so simply human.
Let’s stay awhile and watch
God’s majestic light,
where breezes blow and eagles fly.

I walk through these dead streets forever.
The wind blows in gusts
that pierce my defenses. 
Helpless, without control,
luminous, transparent.
My past is brought to life, not the way
I’d like it shown.

And now the trumpet sounds
and faces turn
as the judgment is being announced.
But when the curtain falls,
You’re there to fold me in your arms.

This much I hope you know:
It will take a long, long time
to make me whole.
There were terrible years,
tales I cannot tell just yet.
Please wait for me to reveal
all that I must be free of.
Bare pastures, dark gardens of pain.

Our love is a blessed thing,
spreading through leafy branches.
The trees of our forest arch and bend
but do not break.
I can believe for the first time
there is grace and peace in store for me.

At the end of the pathway there is a door,
the door we will walk through together
into the most beautiful weather,
some day.
This is my prayer.

It rises like the tide, imperceptible at first.
And then, before I know which shape
it assumes,
it’s standing next to me –
my spirit’s double.
Not fearful, but a friend who comes
around in times of trouble.
She may work her magic again.

Her face looks a lot like mine, but ageless.
What torments me
she hardly acknowledges.
Some of us are in need of an empath,
but she provides a different example
to set me straight.

So serene, she spans the distance
between thought and word.
An elegant creature,
quite sure where her path lies.
Lighter than gravity, she floats
high above the madding crowd.

Moving in lockstep, they have nothing
to show us two.
We merge like the river currents
winding through the teeming delta
of consciousness,
harnessing our energy, then borne
toward the ocean’s foam.

When my soul is healed anew
I remember the purest times I’ve ever had.
As my tears softly fall, she turns to me,
as if to say, “You will endure.”