In the confusion of the moment

In the confusion of the moment
when I thought I was someone else
your touched me
and for a second
we stood still,
you and I,
shorn of everything

The last breath

I looked down and it lay between us gasping its last breaths.
You turned and beat it once more on the head with your club -
such words, such cruelty.
How could you not think it would die,
culled like a seal pup?

We dragged it home and propped it up in the corner. 

Now and again you try to give it resuscitation, 

but I know as you beat its chest that that it is dead. 

Can you not smell the stink of its decay?

I come into your arms

I am come into your arms

because that is what we want -

the shelter of each other's being:

Touching, that we may be touched.

I am come into your days

because that is what we wish -

the symmetries of each other's minds:

speaking, that we may be known.

I am come into you storms

because that is what it is sharing -

the taste of each other's calm:

soothing, that we may be soothed.

I am come into your nights

because that is what it is giving -

each with the other unguardedly:

naturally, because we can be no other.

I am come into your life

because that is what we need -

the warmth of each other's presence:

loving, that we may be loved.

Slowly something deeper

In the stillness of the silence

words begin to have no place,

seem hollow,

seem shallow -

prattlings against the coming of the void,

against the peace that wants to come in

but will not for fear of the self.

Then,

slowly,

something deeper.

Understanding

Scratching with words on the face of the darkest matter:

we see our words for a time -

and then they fade.

nor the harvest that it yields

The banks of a stream do not own the water that flows past them,
The cliffs do not own the waves that break on them,
The birds do not own the wind upon which they ride,
The corn does not own the summer in which it ripens,
Nor the harvest that it yields.

Watch

I watched the leaves fall
and I watched them come again;
now the blossoms fall once more.

you are not you

you are not you

but all of the things said to you

you are not you

but all of those places you have been

you are not you

but all of those people who have smiled at you

you are not you

but all of those people you have touched

you are not you

but all of those people you have loved