Love is so often likened to a flame.
A quick ignition,
An undeniable spark,
A dance of light and passion,
yet fleeting without careful watch.
Love -
a wildfire,
a burning ember,
a candle flickering -
No.
I veto the concept of spontaneous ignition.
Perhaps we might liken lust to a flame,
a burst so capable of damage,
but consider instead
this delicate thing we call love:
Love is a stalagmite.
It is a slow and steady movement together,
unconscious at first,
dictated by circumstance.
It forms in places we thought were long ago hidden away,
surprises us with its eagerness
for movement and growth.
It is the ultimate culmination
of time and patience,
of two separate things
reaching unknowingly for one another,
until,
finally,
they meet.
Love is gentle as a drip,
collecting each moment to build a foundation
solid and sturdy as rock.
It is quiet, subtle,
so often unknown
until a light finds the column that has formed.
It holds tightly together, yes,
but there is no denying
how delicate it can be.
Time and patience build it strong,
but a violent shake,
a crash from above,
a spreading hairline fissure -
if it falls,
it is no sputtering flame.
It crumbles.
It leaves wreckage far greater than mere ashes behind.
No, love is not a flame.
Love is a stalagmite.
When we lay on our backs
and lift our gazes upwards –
As our eyes adjust to the inky blackness
settling over our makeshift bed –
While the silence of a diamond-sparkling night
cloaks our ears in quiet –
I am struck by the closeness of this moment.
How the stars cluttering the sky
(our sky, tonight)
no longer resemble the candlelit December
windowpanes
I once saw in their winking light.
No, tonight,
in the demure companionship of new
friends,
each star is a door, waiting to be opened.
One whose handle is the anonymity of night.
Whose sturdy frame is unasked questions.
Whose other side is the vast unknown
that makes up the heart of You.
So breathe deeply this new autumn air
as we trace patterns in the sky,
and watch as the
quiet radiance
of the constellations spread above us
sends away our shy hesitations.
Yes, each star is a door,
and through them we’ll drift
until we see each other
without walls.
suit up,
reach down,
lift your board,
no leash this time.
you will look over the water as you approach
and stumble with the polyurethane bulk;
the sand is insecure, makes every step agonizingly slow -
a friendship too long spent in blossoming.
you will see the waves and overestimate your skill,
trudge through the sand eagerly,
and it will turn smoothly wet, concrete, now giving in to your advance.
it is beautiful, sunny and blue and empty everywhere but ahead, where you know he is -
how cold is this water that greets you, nibbling hungrily at your toes
before it sucker-punches the air from your lungs -
of course you would be led here,
where the stable earth beneath your feet falters to faith,
faith in muscles, faith in mind, faith in breath, faith in buoyancy,
faith in he, ocean.
you fancy yourself a Nereid and enter what you hope will be your watery home.
your wetsuit warms the hypothermic flush -
the waves are small enough to walk through calmly, slowly, happy.
back and forth, swaying steadily outwards, a dance -
it is so gentle, so sweet,
you forget the sharpness of the shells underfoot.
so long spent waiting for these perfect moments.
you are in past your hips now,
the weightlessness lifting away your hesitations.
simple fun, easy pleasure, time now to drift in endless undulations -
you will mount your board just past where the waves kick harder
and the sandbar becomes irregular under your toes
and float suspended, blissful, waiting.
your arms pump and you move at last -
here to surfnotlounge, here to surfnotdrift,
and out you will go.
here, now, the waves are less friendly.
in them you see your stepfather’s slow rise to anger,
how it built quietly until you stepped beyond its narrow border -
in them you are inexorably alone.
you will gaze out over the vast sapphire expanse,
whitecaps suddenly too large careening towards you,
think “turn back!” but the time for that is long passed.
you forgot yourself back on shore.
you are pummeled they are relentless
oneafteranother
your world is foam and salt and gasping
up you will look and see the monster
a first timer at Mavericks
why didn’t they stop you?
you said you could
that’s why.
nose to the shore, back to the sea, head peers over shoulder -
WAVE NOW PADDLE -
fantasy tears to shreds, flutters around you in the sea breeze rising
ocean arms lift you and release
CRASH through the surface, down you go deep -
shimmering bubbles lock you in a blackening cavern and sneer.
you will be underwater. tumbled twirled flipped, body no longer yours, scorpioned
directions dissipate - left or right or wrong?
you are drowning.
listen
this is important now
step.one. keep your mouth shut tight
no words or shouts for help allowed anymore;
step.two. open your eyes up wide
observe as the sunlight makes a mockery of you, dreamer, in this dark, this blue reality.
step.three. you are drowning. you will
drown.
your board will drift leashless to the water’s edge.
you will stay transfixed, held dead underwater -
but you will love it all the same, Nereid.
no surviving this
no ascending from the depths
Do not go into He, Ocean
Runner.
That’s what she is.
Heavy world, bully for a brain – where to?
Where to hide, to run, to get away from herself?
She knows a place
where faces don’t exist
and individuality melts
into state names and makes;
money or damage.
The world passes by
without a thought in her direction.
Landscapes race, daring her to go faster,
to s l o w d o w n,
but always to move, to go forward.
Runner.
How can she escape herself
on interstates and backroads
when she is the driver and the passenger?
No escape from what you carry inside
no matter the mileage on the odometer.
But the open road is more than a fugitive’s home.
It is a place to forget yourself
in automatic muscles
and instinctual turns
and a deficit of thought.
Perhaps in music, softly on the radio,
loudly from your own lungs.
It is a promise
of new beginnings,
of a past that stays put
and a future that’s just far enough away
to remain beautiful forever.
Runner.
No tracks or trails – just merge lanes
and stop signs,
back and forth – a basket weave.
And at the end, when it’s time
to turn around –
She brings her newest basket home – where is that? –
and fills it with the reasons she left in the first place.
It stays inside with the others
and one distant winter evening,
she’ll bury it in the snow;
and in the springtime,
when the sun melts the Earth’s icy shackles
and reveals what she cached so long ago,
she’ll boggle at how small it is.
The road always beckons anew,
a siren not to be denied.
It promises,
and she weaves,
and spring heals.
That’s what she is.
Runner.
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