i am wilderness and wonderland

by turns ice and fire

the featherbrush of unseen wing

i am regret and renewal

i will lose, dream and re-find you

i will sing to you in your sleep

be patient with your switchbacks and falls

you will rest in the soft and sift of me

travel the round

feast on the nectar

and bathe in the rain of me

your wants for other terrain will weather

become artifacts

and catch my light

as you will forever journey the map and magic of me

if truth would be true

it would be fluid

as nature

as woman

as man

the silverback

and

as the river is fluid

each morning

everything new

wherein sometimes she finds herself up against the aimless drift

it is a known entity he finally gave a name to

it is a wondering and a world as well

a circuitous change being born again and again

and it is even the mundane

(which she has always considered to be the other, an opponent

and so this marriage disquiets her)

and at other times she finds herself at the edge

seeking defilement

or a hard storm

only a thin screen between herself and all the elements:

electricity and earth,

water and sky

pink salt on her tongue

taking all of him inside

thinking less of her delicacy

and more of her need

open to the story he might vine within her

and his capacity to pull that forever soft song from her

more in the here and now, but also in the way back then:

leavetakings and promise

but, most essentially, tonight and tomorrow

considering bed and bloom

speaking the truth

be it circuitous and mundane

known and unknown

exquisite and precious

be it him or you, her or me

the escape we seek is all here and there

and now and then

in the heated dryer sheets meant to smell like islands

in the space between our bodies

in our breath

my eyes

your memory

and it aches and remembers

and stretches

because what else is there

but that which we perceive it to be

give me a long road

between myself and the end of a line

an extended, purposeful solitude

with bone-music, smoke and perpetually open windows

at the other end of which there would still be the music and smoke of me

but also books

and a private hotel balcony

the points being grief at the leaving

and release at the arrival

but also the traffic and lights and muscle of the stretch in between

as if healing could be mapped out in the small hours, the miles and the signposts of another’s design

why must it be so seductive

the abyss

why must i stroll its perimeter

casting my stones over its edge

risking exposure:

the complete vulnerability

found there in its resolute waiting

he

to my great misfortune

is poetry

strong

dark

and willfully mysterious

i need for him to let go

now, in fact, believe he has

and wish he had not

three disturbances in a field

two parallel to one another

one perpendicular

the ninth of twenty-six

a homonym for that in us which sees

indicating something singular

indicating self:

the body, the mind, the soul

a continuum, then

that reaches back and forward

and is still in-between

my mask is one of sanity

and patience

i think that i finally understand what Kundera meant by the “unbearable lightness of being”

it is that nothing can really be pinned down

not the self

nor the self’s perception of its environment

nor history

nor the moment

even things in a so-called solid state can be moved , or buried or worn-down

and certainly not time

everything is always changing

whether it is perceived to be or not

and, ironically, there is a weight to this knowledge

it is one that we all carry

and when held in consciousness

it is unbearable, this lightness

it is that most primal and inevitable grief,

that everything must be let go

all things both internal and ex

self (the prism through which everything is understood) and beauty

joy and cognition

story and transcendence

love

landscape

all of it

(though, i could be wrong)

today i have a sadness holding onto me

like-heavy-feathered wings i’ve not asked for

it will travel me

through my autonomy

also unwanted

as what i do want is him

in my everydayness

touching me

looking into me

lightening the heaviness of my being

because poets don’t always get it right, do we

it is the weight that is unbearable