in the sun and in the dirt

how our hearts do slowly, on their own.
tiny growing things, pressing upward through white-flecked soil
and out of claustrophobic tombs toward sunlight
watered in words and visions

i hope that this is the way--
we find them sprouting up and out at
bach at lunch hour, peeping from under
keyboards writing poems and from behind
camera lenses taking photos. some have
a sort of smothered beauty, others a tough green resilience;
still others the pale white of moon or skin
and those are the most fragile, but easily the
most beautiful to someone like me.

they're so easily broken, these vegetable hearts.
cracking as watery stalks of celery.
but like an underground network of roots so entrenched
they'll quickly spawn a new seedling, nourished by mystery or music,
to be broken again or to spend all its life desperately learning
to flower, opening petal by petal until
maybe for those days of radiance
that is all there is and ever was.

4.4.09

rain in my eye, i am filled by the drive
we go to the hollow in the darkness
tree-limbs shift and thrash against the moon's face

i have yet to see the love of a man who wants to tear me apart
to reach the core. i have felt the most unobtrusive of loves:
there are those who care for you enough to give you good advice or cook for you.
those who would sleep with you, and even those whose caring you'd be lucky just to notice.
i find and catalog each of these; startling and beautiful
but i wonder--
will i see the flitting, elusive, other?
like a dark-feathered raptor, winging through spindly branches
it devours its prey ferociously. always hunting, always searching.

wind-encircled, i will hold us in no-time
where memories toss me like trees in the gale
and barely nudge you. opening tiny easter candy
packages of moments here; it's funny how i'll keep you out
by bringing you to this sacred place and
daring you to touch.