FIRST LOVE

FIRST LOVE

I would lie awake next to her and trace letters on her back as she slept. I would write the words “I Love You” again and again lightly as if the love I felt for her would penetrate her skin, caress her soul. I wanted her to feel my love for her deep in her bones.. My loving her was no secret to her or anyone and I showed it her in many ways: with poetry, unexpected gifts, fidelity, vulnerability and expressions of affection.

I loved holding her hand in silence. We might be walking slowly through the park or just sitting looking out at the lake. I felt closer to her and more assured of her love in our silence. There was no place for lying or confusion in the silence.

We were lovers from a world that didn’t exist except in our making of it. It was I who was the true romantic though, not her. She enjoyed the Walt Disney love story I created for her each day. We talked quietly on the phone whispering to one another from our separate rooms in our separate homes. Hanging up was too much like letting go and neither one of us was ready for that so we’d fall asleep cradling the phones.

Each time she began to leave me for someone else it would break my heart and each time just as I began to get over her she reeled me back in. I was her love trout; she was fishing “catch and release” but I wanted to be kept and taken home for dinner. Without my knowing and until I did know, we were playing different games. My game had an end and it was “happily ever after”. Her game had no end-just a repeating loop of catch and release again and again and again.

Finally it ended and ended badly like all first loves’ do. How else could it end? The heart is never given so fully nor broken so completely than from the crushing disappointment of that first true loves’ demise. 

And then there is the silver box containing all the real and illusionary memories of how “perfect” it had once been. Each time a new possibility, a new relationship presented itself, out came that silver box with it’s imaginary memory of the greatest of loves. And once again, all attempts to recapture the wild innocence and passion of that first love, had to fail. There was only one silver box.

The only hope for the future was that someday the silver would begin to tarnish and reveal the dark foreboding cloud that was there all along. A cloud of lies and deception. Friends of mine saw it and warned me but I was too blinded by the romantic fantasy I created and sustained. Perhaps I never really knew her.     If so, maybe I  never really did love her and if I didn’t love her,  well maybe I have never loved anyone. Maybe what I really loved was “love” itself.

MAKE THIS WORLD A BETTER PLACE

When you do pray, 

pray softly with your fragile faith. 

Become a temple,

With wide open doors.

Open up like a safe place.

Become a playground and let others swing on you,

 Be the fulcrum in your teeter-totter, 

wrestle in your sandbox.

Become what is necessary. 

Be all things to all people. 

Expand beyond the limits of your disbeliefs,

Imagine…

Imagine God. 

Imagine God and You are

One and the Same. 

ICING ON THE CAKE

The soul works through the night

Posing possibilities to consciousness,

A dream readies the dreamer

For challenges to come,

Early morning stillness

Reveals the status of the man

To himself.

We are all awaiting that great arrival

Where the random pieces of all our journeys

Come together

Into one grand understanding.

We are hoping to breathe easier

Before the final Ah ha!

Meanwhile, with all this heady poetry

Feigning depth and thoughtfulness

I have once again forgotten to thank God

For my life and all the attendant blessings.

My lust drives my thinking

And I wake up wanting more:

More of this or that

Or better,

And faster and then

Just a little more.

Not knowing 

how to slow, stop and reside 

fully in this moment,

I stumble sideways, wobbly, 

out of balance, tripping, crashing 

into and through most events

like some comic buffoon,

prat falling for laughs,

but no one’s laughing,

especially not myself.

The performance ends,

there is no where to go and nothing more

 to grab for.

All that I need I have right here,

Air to breathe is the first gift.

Everything after that,

Icing on the cake.

I Will HIDE NO MORE FOREVER

I Will HIDE NO MORE FOREVER

My loneliness is of my own making

i had walled myself away

from myself

and therefore from all,

it is gray today and raining

inside and out,

i let the sadness flow in, flow out,

i stand in water

i lay down in this water

i am soaked in sadness,

washed by my own compassion,

drenched to the bones

of my soul,

Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain.

I will hide no more

forever.

            

I AM WILLING

I AM WILLING

I am willing to really feel

how terribly alone and meaningless

 it feels, has always felt

to be separated from God,

to be separated from myself?

I am willing to acknowledge, grieve and heal

The long jagged rend

in the fabric of my wholeness?

I am willing to do, 

to look, to feel, to see 

everything and anything I must, 

to clear the way to admit God?

To open to both shadow and light,

 to welcome all of my selves, 

and become whole again?

I am willing to surrender

my possessions and habits,

beliefs and self-aggrandizing dreams.

And half measures avail me not.

When having God in my life

this moment and the next moment 

And all my moments

is as important as my next breath…

That is when God will stop

these fleeting random visits

and take up permanent residence

in the welcoming warmth 

of my own heart.