your new lover is conversational in bed,
doesn’t separate a space of loving
from a space of daily living.
you’re intrigued; the idea
merits exploration. she’s tentative,
her life is busy and different,
and neither of you are sure what she wants.
meanwhile i have taken the last step
backwards off a similar cliff,
the peaked gateway to wild freefall loving,
and i’m falling, floating, tumbling, giddy and
drunk with desire for him,
desire to be exactly where i am,
and i’m hardly looking at the ground below.
i don’t know, can’t know what i’m falling into,
but so long as i’m not falling out of anything,
i have faith that landing will sort itself out later.
you and i take each other along,
steady and constant, the deep deep well
that sometimes overflows, but never runs dry.
our wellspring’s in each other
and the land beneath our feet.
it affords us the ability to journey,
go along for the ride with another lover,
even in the unplumbed depths of that intensity.
you’re a lake in my heart,
as deep and wide as my spirit can encompass,
mysterious with hidden caverns and creatures.
whenever we’re touching, whenever we’re talking,
the water pours in,
steady stream of your unfailing spirit,
nurturing my soil. when we’re apart,
i soak up that water, drink from it,
submerge myself in it, let it fill me as you fill me.
there’s a lake of me in you, too.
the river flows both ways.
like an eastern river, it’s always wide and deep.
there isn’t a season in which it runs dry.
even when i’m mid air, freefalling with another lover,
even when i’m drowning in another man’s eyes,
your spirit and my spirit flow into one another
on the powerful current of that unceasing river
and know
there’s nothing more we need to do
to be borne back home—
always already, we’re there.
once on impulse, i planted a hollyhock seed
in a crack between flagstones
near the spigot, where the swamp cooler
dripped erratically in the summer.
the first spring, it put up
four small sturdy leaves,
and i watered it whenever i remembered.
that winter came new love and large changes,
and what with it all, i moved away
leaving the hollyhock to live or die in that crack.
most of the rest of the garden
died of inattention.
two years later, i drive down that street
and glance by reflex toward my old front door,
and i can’t even see it
for the height of that deep green hollyhock,
big leaves bushing up from the flagstones,
not just alive,
but thriving.
garden catalog came today.
we planted peas this week
in the windy sunshine,
kale & carrots.
put in the spring poultry order–
47 chickens and 20
heritage turkeys,
lean & dark & juicy,
shipped in a raucous box next week.
evenings are cold, still,
and the wind is high.
the weather service says sunshine,
but the locals expect another snow.
apricots are blooming anyway,
and cherries.
we didn’t get the goat pens done–
maybe summer. the dog
misses the young company
of our last farmhand,
but more help is on the way.
moved logs last weekend,
built shelves, shoveled manure
for the garden.
summer’s a little closer every day.
and me?
i’m writing love poems again.
good ones, too–
and not all about this farm.
the apricots have the right of it.
snow next week doesn’t mean
you shouldn’t bloom today.
on good days, i move fast.
faster than some men are ready for.
but you’re so delicate, they say,
such a lovely wildflower.
as wise in the ways of this world as any wildflower,
more engaged with pollen than with politics.
as hardy as delicate, rooted and propagating.
my season’s not over so fast as the flower,
though i need as much rain,
the embrace of fertile soil,
the day’s caressing sunshine.
a little wind clears the eyes.
at sunset, in the cracking soil of long drought,
i am still here,
still holding your heart,
and mine,
in an outstretched hand.
I should have asked you to teach me
how to sharpen a shovel,
change the oil in my car,
milk a cow, grow buckwheat.
Instead we fought, all down the years,
till I moved far away and
let distance do my talking.
Only since I’ve proved myself,
come into my own on our small farm,
taken up the reins of a way of life
you laid down decades past,
have we begun to speak.
Every antique in your house
had a purpose on its farm of origin.
Every antique in your house
came from a farm.
Copper wash kettles, iron kitchen tools,
ice hooks, cream pitchers, milking cans,
baking spoons, egg beaters, brace and bits, oil lamps,
weed hooks, vegetable knives, a bone saw,
a shot gun, the dinner bell, the quilts.
Farming has changed, your children have changed.
All these purposeful objects,
hand-crafted, used by your hands
or your mother’s hands,
are now investments, handed down to your children.
Investments in a past our future could resemble,
if we shape it so.
Grandpa, I’ll learn to sharpen a shovel
anyhow, on my own, as I’ve done everything.
But I should have let you teach me.
i put down roots as easy as breathing.
fine filaments tangling,
binding up the soil wherever i stop.
i have roots left in houses, towns,
ecologies i’ve left behind–
and some in places i’ve never been,
borne there like potted plants
by the people i’m rooted to.
wings are my challenge.
always i’m reaching out to people
who spend their time flying, or falling,
rootless, or at least unanchored,
wild, free. falling in love
is flying i can do in one place
another way of growing roots
and even branches.
it’s easy to just sit down and grow.
much harder to up and move,
to migrate, to change, to fall.
but oh, the thrill, the exhileration and joy,
when i manage it.
take that last willful step off
the cliff and into the winds, and tumble,
undirected, unguided, unencumbered.
when i land i find
i’ve once more left roots behind.
this time, trailing in the air,
drinking in the wind in search of more.
edges burn more readily than centers.
setting an edge alight is a simple matter,
though putting it out again may not be,
if it is inclined towards fire,
incendiary, interested in burning.
the center doesn’t light so well
unless you reach it through the edge,
take the slow route in, open its defenses.
only water will put the center out, once alight.
anything else just picks up the blaze,
amplifies, and burns.
you came pretty close to the center,
smouldering your way in from my furthest edge,
taking a lazy course through the perimeter,
tossing sparks, circling my periphery,
until suddenly, you had arrived
in the flammable heart,
and everything around you ignited.
suprised, you could only
watch it burn, turning in slow circles,
observing, unable
to reach your hands out toward the flame.
1.
time is distance and distance is distance
and the heart aches to cross both,
yearning across boundaries,
loving across boundaries.
i build a nest in my heart,
furnish it lavishly, comfortably,
keep it warm for when you return.
you step inside, melting me with a smile
and a simple, frank, “i love you,”
and the miles and days melt away.
2.
time is distance and distance is distance,
and the heart aches to cross both.
what would i do to have you back again,
as we once were?
what history, what learning, would i erase
to stretch again in the warmth of your regard?
a push against the limitations of the possible, of the real.
i would not be other than i am.
though this appears to mean i have lost you.
3.
time is distance and distance is distance
and a heart aches, standing,
still, and growing.