Raw.

Raw and shorn.

This raw, shorn soul...

I

I

I

L_I

Blood.

So much blood.

Life itself drains away, and with it all the hopes of a new encounter, a precious gift, a person and the treasure of coming to know them, lost.

Labor pains, for later term. Heart-numbing confusion.

Will the child, in death, need be delivered?

Whomever this child may be, may.

A heartbeat there and gone the next day.

A sharp contraction, and blood which signifies the loss.

A woman in labor to give birth to the whole suffering of human life,

a life-giving act without life,

a breath that cannot be taken in,

the inevitable end of all men

to be found before he has scarce begun,

a witness and a sign

of the human condition

to die, lungs constricted, heart unbeating,

man in the throes of daily life beset by empty sufferings,

by scars and wounds of past,

connected to life by a thread

unable to connect

for he has left his soul for dead -

All in her labor and the blood,

this child breaks her worn heart

and shows all life to us...

Glistening, the world seeps.

My brow bleeds crowns

of sweat beads

blistering,

festering,

but I see

and I breathe

a new day

for hoping

a blossom -

the rain sings -

and up from

the dark springs

a bow of

your beauty.

Forgiveness,

it calls me,

a new name;

I am free.

Your promise is to me

forever, a heart beat

lasting til

the whole world ends.

If water does recede

and all my drowning fades,

yearning reaches,

arms stretching into the dark,

hands grasping

at leaves of living trees,

paling heights

and down from tides

and tattered skies,

clouded minds

breaking open

flood with light,

how then may I

meet your promise?

I build an altar in my head

where all the lies were stored and fed,

where anxiety was my best friend,

and where despair met with

the thought of death;

And in my heart now stones erect,

an altar too for wine and bread

to consecrate - this change I bless -

where clammy hands of fear once led

to darker caves - and love, it bled -

built up a idol there to dread,

and in the flood you let it drown,

but saved myself instead.

Early morning calls

stripped of all

chance to find

a moment of time.

Family fortune

is my portion,

otherwise a rained

skeptic,

concupiscent.

Does the favor

of a birthright,

grant to me an insight?

Offer me a way out?

Give to me an extra year,

to die by some other

death,

to submit to some other

fear -

that my mother might shed

some other

tear?

If I take what I'm

offered,

decline to join the

scoffers,

and raise my head

above the flood

with even the lowest worm,

doing as he ought -

might I find admission paid

- not by my cries in the dark -

a place already bought

- hands have left a mark -

and salvation for the asking,

on this commissioned ark?

Holding up on my own

all that Atlas

left to man,

when all the world’s

not just a globe

but every heart

beats worlds unknown.

This burden bearing

on my neck

breathing down

my back -

turned on its head,

like all the rest.

Knocking on my bedroom wall

an oso for sos

save me from myself

out of corners dark and cold

where I make my bed -

the demons at my door,

waiting for an opening,

and of the one that left -

seven walked the world to me -

emptied out

brushed and swept,

brought them back as guests.

No flooded globe

but in my soul

and every soul

all drowned and left

without a breath.

What promise have you kept...?

.

.

.

Isn't this called...

Wonder ?

.

.

.

I am always in wonder

and awe

.

.

.

because, as someone much wiser than me once noted:

all the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.

There is too much beauty and intricacy in this world

not to wonder at it all.

Behind these walls I've built,

the lonely soul I've nearly killed,

fragile, swept away

by overflow of decay,

of pain, of desolation,

from dust gathered

in search of love, but finding

the pursuit and the catch

both and, neither nor

can fill the fearful ache

as our emaciated souls

hope ever for.

The whisper that sounds

in the hollow in my heart,

like all men,

the minstrel’s song of war,

as old as time,

a dance with all my demons:

the dark tower,

and the garden...

With a smile, painted on,

the heart in exile

the faithful heart,

faithful, stony bower,

torn apart in search of

what shadow cannot steal.

Houses and hearts, in ways the same,

each the canvas, blank

of true love and sorrow, both,

till we take up the paint.

The scale and the color of our love

heart to heart, soul to soul--

for man may there be mercy

if in these he fails:

to paint a porcelain heart

with tender eyes of hope,

leaving it to shatter,

the canvas to be splattered?

When what we treasure most

becomes our agony,

for desiring from afar

the embrace of another heart with lock and key,

can still we choose

to suffer with

and thus from walls be freed?

No one am I to dare such things,

and yet I wonder:

can my walled up soul still choose

to love the one in front of me?

Do the love and the will

of a cracked heart such as mine--

all my rubble here to find--

read as I hope they do:

a letter to you,

detailing an honest confession,

the mosaic of a weary life,

setting sail to port and home,

my home now made anew

by my love for you...?

But sit awhile and speak with me,

about love beyond what I perceive,

and teach me the power of a name,

from which I've often turned, afraid,

the hope of Misericordiae--

of mercy in my broken state,

the consequence of the places I have been.

And if we go from thought to thought,

in which we ponder many things,

let lost hope be mine once more,

the chance of the sun in my soul,

to break through mud, brick, and stone...

The fear of never being whole

stripped away from my soul:

At last opening a tiny door

in my heart,

and there not hiding anymore.

death, suffering,

Of colors

we

rarely

heed,

and days

on which

the

icy

air

reminds us

that we

still

breathe.

Tower reaching hallowed sky

gleaming purest white,

polished gold and ivory

trimmed with moonlight.

Pools of pearled glass

lay at rooted feet,

and stairs of diamond

spiral up to suite.

Fire in the hearth,

a chair for her guest

her heart, inviolate home,

for weary souls, as I, to rest.