the Remember poem
Or, Love Song #73
remember
we ran together without our skins
in fields of stone and tombs of diamond
remember
the sun how it envied the moon
when we made the grey lizard eyes our Dionysius
and danced on the murderous edge of the tunnel,
joined together by liquid thread, divided by flesh only
remember
how we started the ceaseless silence with cries like leaves
and visioned chariots running through an ear to the earth
down ancient roads and down wisdom whirlpools
in the pocket of wind we were riding
remember
how you took my pain from the softness of my belly
and the belly of my soft native beating drums in a pale mysterious desert,
you had invisible cells, they were invisible,
and I bequeathed my stillness, I forgot my name and my shadow
remember
I rolled in your sorrow more than once
and you forgave me for it and you
gave me for it
I gifted you innocence and reminiscence
I prayed your soul’s soliloquy in my mourning
remember
all of the sacrifices we make that drip like honey
down helpless quivering vacuums of emptiness
searching for the bottom and seeking a crystal christening
remember
all of the passion and pain from these broken drums
can rest on the sorrowful side of a teardrop,
all of these faces I see of golden and rusty life
a field of sunflowers waving an ocean on lonesome hillside
remember
the scent of them as they are turning under the shadow of July receding
remember the scent and remember the turning.
–Fullerton, California
Late summer, 1994
for Kath
