The mouth of the cave

You live in glorious uncertainty, as this world turns in its own grave, but in the collapse of all thought and sensibility, grief animates creativity. You will know which way to turn when there is no place to lay anchor; you recalculate, you reorient, but there is neither harbour nor safe shore. No place for the heart to rest. You only notice the nests in the trees in the depths of winter, when the leaves are gone and all the birds have flown away. You only feel for the light when the fire dims, when something inside you dies just a little, and you see with perfect lucidity — there, by the embers that remain, in their faint afterglow, the mouth of the cave.

Undone

I am being willingly disassembled,

split into fragments of embezzled light.

I seek the restoration of that rare quality of soul

in pools of broken compromises that collect in you to make in me another whole.

I am haunted by my desire to withdraw

from this extended prelude to a romance that ends on page one

But I am called by the wind which calls no ship to harbour

It is the order of a world undone.

I follow you to the ruins in this pause between the shadows

The curtains close and we are alive, for once.

Unadulterated

You ran to the city in search of saints, sharing our life lessons, speaking in tongues to mute audiences, their heads bowed before blood-stained confessionals, hearts calloused by the cruelties of generations.

You made an art form out of missed encounters, between these strangers who will see no tomorrows, between stubborn dawns and the closing of the days, whose silences are reveries to the original loss.

You sang tone-deaf lullabies to seeds unsown, turning in their graves, seeking shelter in the embrace of many winters, growing around the flames, in search of pure, and unadulterated, kindness.