waqt :: time

Spelling your name

heath — Mon, 04 May 2009 18:45:27 +0000

The lyrical act
of spelling your name
is a poem,
a poem.
How else
can I tell
how I woke
in the night
needing a quilt,
and found I was
tracing
the cuniform grave
of your name
in the soft
cotton folds,
how it felt,
the shapes
of the given
and surname
so different,
so yours,
and how sometimes
my hand
found your face?

Callery pears

heath — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:54:59 +0000

Callery pears,
their white lace and cream
like Watteau;
the etchiness of oaks
in bud,
scribbled high.
Reach for the sky,
the sap’s up!
As sweet and raw as a wood fire
am I,
and sad as the sea.
What to do?

On a string of hours

heath — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 05:34:06 +0000

on a string of hours
one end:
anchored by your call
the other:
held by Frederick Seidel’s work
I crossed a chasm
one side:
the when-you-were-there-last-year cliff
the other:
home
springing across
without knowing I’d stepped out
I’m here
now
if you never again
if you don’t want
then or now
still
I’m OK
and if sad makes me mad
in a Hamletian sense
so be it then
but I’m home

Tough love

heath — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 16:43:49 +0000

â€œStill in love?â€

Yes,
though nowâ€™s a time
when I donâ€™t always
feel that way.

Loveâ€™s summer-colored rags
are dark with hurt,
its air is heavy,
quiet.
Yet nothing hides
its layered continuities.

â€œShe really was in love,â€
theyâ€™ll say.

I am.
Loveâ€™s tough,
but I donâ€™t run.
No virtue: it holds my finger,
wrist
and heart
and wonâ€™t let go.

Walnut-love

heath — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:18:34 +0000

Almonds are sweet,
but walnut-bitterness is sweeter.
Men are sweet,
but his anger is sweeter.

All in a circle
called love,
my heart
beats for one
at the center.

August snow in March

heath — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 04:40:03 +0000

This early March,
snow fell,
it was like Rani’s in KANK.
The second time, I counted her scenes
so I could talk about the third with snow,
the one where ice and nature
make a woven singularity.
Like House of Flying Dagger’s
blizzard, how it blanketed death,
but wounds showed through,
like that, this me, this now, this snow.

The August before we met,
my love for him was avalanched.
Snow had stolen our river.
“Aur tumse aankhon laser-like hain,
you’ll sear the ice.
…my love for you
will never die
never die never die,”
I wrote.
It never did.

You,
dimensional as a dream,
so rich with meaning,
a thought of you
fills me with
such sweet pain,
I suddenly know I know
the meaning
of every love poem
and every book,
this love that has no name
nor words enough
to give it metaphor,
now, in today’s winter snow,
and before,
surpasses everything
I promised him that August day.
This love does not undo
my word.
It’s sleeping,
cradled in the tree of you.

Yesterday

heath — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:11:04 +0000

Yesterday,
a falcon flew.

His mile-long
figure eights
moved clouds
from west to east,
and bent the sky
in soft blue light.

The arcs he made
were love of you.