Listen
You will hear her story
Awake on a breath of night wind
The wings of a butterfly
In that first unfolding
Whisper the colors of her dress
As a prism of light through your window
You wave her down
when she’s gone
Even then. But what now?
Time has taught clichés
A heart truly can break
and ache
and burst
A heart can get hungry too
or greedy
or full
Maybe all at once
sometimes
Give in too late
Promise too early
Stay silent with secret dreams
Drift with thoughts like ghosts
Faded under morning light
In emptiness, that well-worn verse
If you cared…then you would
But if is a superstitious guess
An eyelash wish
A breathless unknown
to reach beyond. What to do?
These scars
Our armor
Over tender skin
The hurried answer
The question lost
Maybe all at once
sometimes
Collect the noise of the Universe
Lift your head above the chatter
Find a raw and hopeful voice
Faded under morning light
A breathless unknown
woven through the commotion
Whisper the colors of her dress
As a prism of light through your window
You still wave her down
when she’s gone
The Moon, she appeared
Unbidden
on the tips of winter branches
while the grey line of dawn
Gave shape to the earth
The Wind beneath her
Swept through the forest
Never still
Look up!
She knew where to find him
Why,
asked The Wind
Why do women come
and pin their hearts to my sleeve?
Women should come
and go
As casually as me
The Moon, she lifted
her silver veil
The Wind saw her face
her body
The promise of a new-born sun
Reflected on her skin
Well,
she said
I am not any woman
I am The Moon
My right arm the ebb
My left the flow
with the strength to shift oceans
I don’t change men
I change my mind
Oh, Wind
You injured man
You soul unchained
I’ve known hurt too
By hope
and love
and life
I have my dark side
Look up!
Don’t you see it?
Hope
and love
and life
Those are our prayers
Greater
More abundant
Alive
In every moment
Casual
Profound
Weighted in counterbalance
Our separate truths in opposition
Stretched like that horizon
and so we grow
Or we would still be yesterday’s creatures
The world needs The Wind
Your storms and summer breezes
All I want
Is to live the last breath of this night
Look up!
Roll me through the trees
Lift me to the stars
When you whisper
Forgetful
along my mountains
into my valleys
I can forgive any man
even The Wind
The Moon, she smiled
A woman can open herself wide
she knows the men who wait
standing ready at her gate
Interest or disinterest
She won’t need to rise
to the occasion like a man
A woman, she knows
Men are easily had
She keeps her gate closed
Until she has chosen
A woman, she knows
Men can be dangerous
She keeps her gate locked
Until she is safe
When she opens her gate
you are her guest
She has chosen you
That choice is a gift
Accept my gift
or leave it here in my lap
I know how to tend it myself
Morning dawns
Spring’s breath has left the buds
to follow her time-worn path
This unbroken line
Back to the cold of winter
New from old
Old to new
With stories on their tongues
And hearts across their sleeves
The ancient women sing
For winters past and coming springs
The whisper of a lover’s game
Under a sun chased moon
To press time westward across the sky
A woman’s breath beneath her hand
The guarded slip of her tongue
Stories played in a hidden heart
while winter sighs around her fire
This aging woman sings
For winters past and coming springs
The whisper of a lover’s game
Under a sun chased moon
To press time westward across the sky
Survivors in unbroken line
Drawn from me to you
Queen Guinevere William Morris This work of art is in the public domain
Guinevere
Soft and lost
Naïve and wise
Stood on the street corner
Watching poetry fly
up toward the street lamps
like moths to that last hope
That dangerous burning promise
When Lancelot happened by
Oh, hey there, Guinevere
Hey, friend of mine
Imagine running into you like this
your letter fresh in my pocket
Unanswered and waiting
Naïve and wise
I was going to write
I’d have written so well
but I’ve been so busy
Didn’t you hear?
I’ve gone on a quest
I’m finding the Holy Grail
She tried to pass him
but he pulled her close
So lately familiar
Lancelot, don’t
Don’t stand so near me
We can’t collide anymore
I never knew you at all
I knew you like I shouldn’t
How you shed your clothes
The first time I asked
And I saw what you thought of me
Alive and real and unmasked
But now my words
My heart
Hidden there in your pocket
Exposing the colors
The me I think I am
I showed you mine
But you won’t give me a peek
Not of your heart
You won’t undress that far
Hey, friend,
said Lancelot
Don’t think it doesn’t matter
But my silence is the kinder story
Than a lie about the contents of my heart
A heart I hardly know
Don’t mind me,
said Guinevere
Don’t stand there watching, Lancelot
I’m just falling
One foot in front of the other
Like learning
Like walking
And Baby, a woman
She can walk all night
Until she comes to that morning light
Where the sky grows soft
and the pillars sleek
That man-made building between her streets
How it can touch her sky
and make her breathe
I know you know that feeling
You have shown me
But I was falling from the start, Lancelot
When my sins came spilling
All at once into your lap
And you said…
I’d have asked you anyway
My god, I thought
Here he is
A man who can make me breathe
A man who will take me as I am
I fell
One foot in front of the other
Until you found me here
Oh, Guinevere
My friend
Where is that woman I held?
Wild and impetuous and free
You will run me off with girlish fear
Don’t look for my white horse now
I’ll still make you breathe
We’ll find some other convenient time
Lancelot
Soft and lost
Older and wiser
Stood on the street corner
His face unmasked in the summer sun
No lover’s shadows to hide behind
Just a man
of lost intentions
of empty promises
of wayward dreams
Just a man
in civil war with disappointment
and the brilliance of his mind
and the goodness of his heart
Guinevere
There in front of him
Her heart and Camelot destroyed
Nowhere left to run
Knowing everything
Coming to her own wasted truth
I’d have asked him anyway
I’m late, said Lancelot
I’ve got a grail to chase
Sometimes, a man
He comes up empty handed
Nothing to hold but his own manhood
When a Guinevere happens by
A woman to fill with his empty time
That sacred gift
That faith for free
Consecrated at her private alter
Isn’t that what holy means?
And isn’t she a vessel?
Isn’t she that grail?
Hidden there in plain sight
Right in front of him
But, Lancelot
He turned away
Sometimes, a man
He’s out for the quest
He looks around another corner
Sometimes, a woman
She swallows regret for her pride
She learns to offer the final empty lie
I’ll see you later
Guinevere called after Lancelot When she really meant goodbye
Grand Central Station Dancers: Morgan Yates and Ross Warpinski Choreography: Angie Flanagan Photo: Tim Josephs
Step down
Into the caves of modern man
Weave through the blur of impatient colors
Stand in the marbled gleam of negative space
Inside the hurried devotion to the iron god
There
Beneath the clock
Two almost lovers stood like living art
She took the fabric of his shirt
Pulled him to her
Wished him back through time
He kissed her
Will we meet again?
He asked her
We always meet
She said
Meeting isn’t the hard part
There
Where time moves forward
Lovers part like the Red Sea
The miracle of discovery
The intangible goodbye
Woven through the blur of impatient colors
Lost in the gleaming marble of negative space
But the clock remains
Held hostage by a thousand parting words
Words that whisper along shining walls
That trip down stairs
Through the tunnels to the hidden tracks
There
Always there
Beneath the clock
Words
Mingled in the echo
The rhythm of anonymous life
In the caves of modern man
Two lovers like living art
There
She let him go
Let him fall in devotion to the iron god
But if we do meet again
She said
If we meet again
I will make you dance
Every time I am in Grand Central Station, I am touched by the little stories… the meetings and the partings… right there in that moment inside the hurry to get someplace else.
There is a secret garden
Dangerous and unexpected
Strange and wild
I found while falling
Rain-like in the summer heat
Tiptoe over the tiny heartbreaks
Through the empty and the lush
Do I possess it in my head?
It might have been my heart
The heart is fragile
But you have to keep seeking
Keep asking for life
Tiptoe over the tiny heartbreaks
Let my mind hold it alive and warm
Coax it with the hand of memory
Not much
Never very much
Or I will need it in that desperate way
A drug chased too long
A talisman held too dear
And the holding is how it is most often lost
I press along the edges
Until it aches
Like testing a bruise
To find it still part of me
Dangerous and unexpected
Strange and wild
A secret garden
How he looked my way and I felt it And yet he did not know me And I could not find him Try as I might Behind the bricks he laid In a mortar of busy jokes And his lovely hands And his shattered heart But oh, he looked at me so well And how across the room I wanted to hold his hand How I heard him speak to another And wished it were to me he spoke How he became a poem in my head How he kissed me in the place above my dying heart In the dark corner where no one else was looking How his mouth slide warmth along my emptiness And my soul whispered my god I might have loved him If I hadn’t broken love to pieces How painful it was to hold my soul captive To pluck her song unsung from my mouth When she only wished to set us free But I knew the price my soul demanded And tried to turn away How I surrendered And yet I could not find him Try as I might Behind the bricks he laid In a mortar of busy jokes And his lovely hands And his shattered heart But oh, he looked at me so well
I took your city to bed
Under a rain soft and bitter
Her streets wet
Her buildings part for me to enter
I know you found her first
But now I walk inside her too
Now I make wishes on her stones
She wrote him a letter
With library pencil and blue lined paper
They parted at the corner
She made wishes on his stones
He threw away her seashells
When he thought she wasn’t looking
Wait, she whispered
Look, she cried
He drown in a street of umbrellas
Like a river dark and cold
I woke before dawn
Watched her colors spread across the sky
Red and gold and violet as the fire inside me
Wake up, I whispered
Look, I cried
But no one answered
I always sleep alone
Meet me on the steps, she whispered
Meet me where you kissed me, she cried
She chased the colors he once wore
Tapped the shoulders of a thousand men
A thousand strangers
None were him
She walked home alone
Under a rain soft and bitter
Stop someday in the place I stood
To watch umbrellas weave from sight
Like a river dark and cold
To pick out the colors I once wore
In the street signs
And brake lights
The smile of a cab driver
The train shudders
Comes to rest beside white tile
The valiant flicker of electric lights
He leaves his umbrella on an empty seat
Wait, she whispers
Come back, she cries
But the doors close
The train weaves from sight
Like a river dark and cold
When I have stolen your city
You will see my colors spread across her sky
Her streets wet
Her buildings part when you enter
You will burn with red and gold and violet
Meet me on the steps, you whisper
Meet me where you kissed me, you cry
But too late
This city has granted your wish
You walk alone
Under a rain soft and bitter
What became these days
Here behind frosted glass
Here where patience still won’t answer
And my children echo on yellow walls
This living down to threadbare rugs
This hope to tease despair
To turn a longing into song
There was the smell of sun warmed grass
There was a drink of sea worn tears
The flavor of a kiss I never tasted
Those broken words
Those nightingales turned to larks
Old letters turned to an old man’s scars
What stumbling
What chance breath
Became these days
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