911

written in 2001 & never before published
the seeming injustice of LOVE

if I were a blazing sun bathing your canopy
shafts of cascading light
penetrating the depths of your sorrow
through where all of your shame turns in upon you
snapping and snarling

I received your angry pain
as deeply as I received the softening
which revealed all this to me and more
and my heart burst open in your arms
but we didn't dial 911

if I were the horde galloping across the plain
the thunder that shakes you to the core
quickening the beat and the pulse
churning up all that you fear fully exposed

I would not accept your closing
as I accepted your need when you came to me
and lay fully upon my bed
and my eyes were wide open
but I foolishly dismissed sirens whirring
911s' in my head

if I were a great gathering cloud
a dark creation of the wind
a hungry gargantuan overwhelming the light
threatening to overcome and to extinguish
everything you take yourself to be
I'd understand why you can't embrace me

so dial 911 and tell anyone who can hear it
I was the ocean lapping the shores of your pain
kissing needs in hard places
in soft and tender, wondrous places
in tearful and fearful, near festering places
in places so near to Heaven, I….

before you would flee
I was seeking the spring where waves like laughter
cleanse, and heal, and bubble forth into bright fine either
into perfumes both sweet, almost spicy
into a fine and delicate golden releasing us luminous
into air newly charged after storms


I am flame reduced to flickering
deep in the mystery of all that is and is not
where your abortion discarded me limp
to listen
to sense
to dig and rout
to go hungry
to become empty
unformed
to be sleepless and dreamless, spineless and speechless
ruthless and heartless, mindless and fearless
where I don't care
that
you
don't
love
me
where I don't care
that
I
can't
love
you

O delicate, brilliant, wounded creature of heartbreaking chaos
we are not victims of darkness
we are GOD in form becoming greater light gleaned
from honest struggles hard won

I am profound with the life loving you birthed in me
I am potent with the staying power LOVE commands
The air is over alive with fear and judgement
with pain and frustration
it is time to stand even if trembling and unsteady
and make my heart and gifts known

So dial 911 and tell someone
how passion plays its' cadence
through each of us in our form
how tenderness and violence
darkness and brightness
how energy, yin and yang, resonates and sings
wave upon wave upon wave upon wave
moment into moment into moment unfurling

dial 911 and tell anyone who can hear it
LOVE uses me to serve its' purpose
that fight as I will I am overcome to love you
that I am in process, imperfect, and unstable
raw and vulnerable
brilliant and beautiful
and never sure when, but certain I shall
fall again and again and again