I ache for you
and your magic touch
I long for your warmth
and your words
I ache also
for all lovers
lost and far apart
and lonely
like we are

once in a while
I am totally amazed
to stop and look around me
and wonder just how I got here
to this point
in my life.
what rapid decisions,
what uncertain steps and words
brought me here?

I do not
comprehend it.
how can a love
as great
as I feel –
one that fills
my whole world –
how can it not
feel the same
to you?

I believe in a Creator
I believe in existence beyond this life
I know there is a reason for my existence
there is too much order in the universe
for there to be nothing
too many rhymes and reasons
cycles and seasons
that all add up to perfect sense

I want
to storm
the castles
of your mind
defeat the armored guards
of your feelings
swim across your moat
of protection
take down your drawbridge
and, entering your innermost depths,
go right to the heart of you

I am a blade of grass among the billions
a drop of water in the sea
and yet a part of every meadow
a part of every lake and river
I run with the rivers
in the spring
down the canyons of your mind
full of joy and carefree
I am everywhere and in everything
a part of all the things you love
I am an eternal part of the earth
I am happy and free
and yet still beside you

the roses
you sent me
lasted five days –
you stayed
with me for
nine days –
but the love
you started
in my heart
could last
through
one hundred lifetimes…

I would have sworn
that we invented love,
that we were the first to touch this way
the first to use these words,
the first to have these feelings.
how hard it is to realize
that all our special words and phrases,
looks and glances, touches, movements
were not created by us.
they have been used and echoed
and repeated for centuries
by all other lovers.
we were not the first to feel this way;
we will not be the last…

huddled over
the chessboard
of my life,
I ponder
my next move

I wish I could sing
or play the flute or violin
there is so much in me
bursting to get out
all this color and excitement
way inside me
has no way to be free
I want to let out
some of this passion for life
this energy
there are so many fine melodies,
so much music and song,
trapped in me, wrapped up in me
I wish I could sing
or play the flute or violin

marvelous human beings,
you are
my loves, my life-long friends,
and precious to me for all time.
but your best moments
are the ones in which
you come baby-small and innocent
and go world-weary but wise.

Is there some magic to the sea?
Perhaps it’s just that it’s so free,
Hemmed in only by lonesome shores,
Dashing on them with deafening roars.
It tosses its waves upon the sand,
Obeying none but its own command.
When moonlight bathes the lonesome
beaches
And silvers all the sea it reaches,
The waves shimmer with haloed light
In the still silence of the night.
The sea itself makes the only sound
But for the soft wind close around.

I am lost with you
watching a river ripple,
watching the water move
with its currents, its eddies.

surely it has moved like this
down the same path
for centuries;

surely life has flowed
in endless patterns,
in constant cycles,
as smoothly as this

long before
we stopped here in wonder
to observe it.

you are a beautiful dream
that brightened up my life
like a shooting star
so brief, so lovely, so unexpected
your image remains
permanently burned in my memory
sliding a white fluorescent path
across my thoughts
like a meteor flashing across
a night sky