but the death of four:
Sweet Katie,
Noble Michelle,
Sister Triska,
Dear Cheryl ...
All hopelessly entangled
and estranged
And me a flinty Scot
too stubborn to yield
To ... what? I never knew,
it only came back
On the analytics report
as submission.
Love was constant, though,
as familiar as this morning
With only the sunflowers
in the role of the desired.
It was me, always me,
who found a form to fill
And, in filling,
felt
Innumerable loves
that criss-crossed lifetimes
And reminded me what
I'd yet to learn
Although the nearly remembered
brought me only a little closer
To where I was,
always,
Subjected, as I
was, always,
To the natural patterns of time
in this dimension,
The one of storyline
as inevitable
As the green in the grass
that grows towards
Another season,
where love is expressed
In new minds to articulate
the old thoughts,
New hearts
to carry the beat,
New diamond light resistances
that mirror
For me to contend with
in my inner shell
That never quite
gets to where
The ocean
meets the shore,
The individual expression
is shared
Except as an echo
in the hollow cove
Where the witches make you
remember who you were
When the lack of love's
lack of consequence
Hit like a karmic
load of bricks --
Itself a line from another relationship
fractured
That came in
by way of Buffalo
Like the wind
onto Lovegrove
Where the ghosts were still
too moist to go,
Another artist talk
professional
Dreaming the stones
as ancient stories,
Reconfiguring the rooms
of the antiques city,
The animal space
on innocent spokes ...
Always there were words
left for something
Now missing,
as monument
For thought alone
that forgot itself,
The prerogatives of the heart,
the reach
For what is always there,
a constant,
As if the sun can be found
in a tree,
The stars far enough
away
There's no danger
of straying too close.