The Sea We Will Not Tame

Wondering upon our almost forgotten smiles

and twinkling eyes hidden, 

we have spun this world

in smoke and mirrors, 

reflecting light in curving waves. 

We have wandered

into the misty fog

as it marched 

out of clear air 

on a perfect night 

to become rooted 

in the moss upon which we dream, 

seizing that ethereal ground like honey 

under winter's veil. 

Perhaps that explains why

that which spins in you 

is foreign to me, 

sometimes, 

and yet somehow 

a thread of it loops around my heart 

and tugs, 

as familiar as kin, 

or friends too long apart. 

And I realize how deeply 

you reflect the same light 

that I've known uncounted

for a thousand years 

times a thousand more. 

I feel the stretch of this flaxen fulfillment 

and hear its golden tone humming 

as it lengthens. 

Sometimes too loose to vibrate 

the membranes 

of our soup-can telephones. 

So that even though we both speak 

in muted carefully hesitant tones, 

our words slip away into space 

and only the stars know the songs we sing. 

Bellowed out like whales in an empty sea, 

only by chance refracted into a hearing ear,
that begins to understand
and then lapses into slumber again.

Even as magnificently we harmonize 

beyond the dark face of the secret moon at midnight, 

we hear not each others callings, 

and even less often see them dancing. 

Except perhaps 

in the limelight of our hearts sweet glow 

where I know we live. 

So it is odd to feel 

this familiar twist 

of an old theme 

of distant overtures not really knowing 

what note should follow 

the one that follows 

the one that is yet unwritten. 

It just floats there unresolved, 

sometimes aching for nothing at all, 

other than the illusion of being. 

Yet sometimes aching for the grace 

to say softly,
the love that floats here 

in my heart for you, 

without trying to enchant an echo. 

Just to freely blow that kiss

into free space knowing 

that is enough to be received 

by the one that is. 

And given by that one too, 

to itself. 

And so I reflect upon that flow 

I have named you, 

and wish it good journey, 

knowing we are both leaf and river. 

Masters of the helm 

we sometimes do not steer 

and only at the mercy 

of the sea we will not tame.