SHE AND HE (for Jude)

 

 

This place, unnamed and in between

There and there where such

 

Sadness and much joy stare across

Earth cleaved like an open sea,

 

A deep ravine divides and connects

Each to the OTHER, where no

 

Language but sheer silence and

A bridge swaying in breeze and

 

Fog shrouded may hope to join

Them through a trek in untaught

 

Faith in one long day’s unknown

Revealing….

 

Where and How are found the

Courage, concealed by staunch

 

Pride and confused desperation,

To welcome this strange neighbor,

 

To breathe the red dirt and salt water,

To hack and cough with plunging tears

 

Constrained by tired eyes and to know

Here under thick cloud cover,

 

Surrounded by sage and fragile

Flowers, ocean waves and

 

Humpback whales, that they are

Separate yet somehow together too

 

In a mystery play of several acts, a time

Of raw feeling more than stubborn facts.

 

 

Then, after wandering south around

A secret lake nestled next to a golden

 

Neighborhood or on an island

Painted with blues and greens

 

With air so soft it moans, sweat

Soaked athletic bodies in the mid-day

 

Swelter as memories of cool shade’s

Perfect solace stirred dormant

 

Longings from the rock strewn ravine

And the infinite azure water:

 

Towards each of these two disparate

Beings was now born a tendril of listening,

 

Vines of purplish flowers were woven

Slowly then into waves of song,

 

Elegies of grief and of sweet sweet

Celebration, they filled the wild earth

 

The sea and sky with words of honor

And spirited relief, this miracle of

 

Commingling across the starry void

As she and he grasped eager hands

 

To walk up a narrow meandering path

Towards their wild and loving home.