Five of Five: summation

I.

I know where this goes,

but not where the first step

can be discerned,

from among all available options.

It originates somewhere

close to an Oasis of the heart,

but a woman's inner life

is a constructed

and naturally occurring continent

of vast interior space,

and even continental plates

have their limits, their weaknesses-

fault lines. Places where they break.

We have always desired,

at our bodily level

the traveler unafraid

to carve new trails

through unexplored wilderness.

A safe place to break her heart

open upon,

a place where the breaking

is an act of faith,

not violence.

II.

Our landscapes are marked

by the presence of grand trees.

And what are trees,

but love stories written by terra firma

in praise of all the heavens offer?

There are hundreds of ways

to scribe your love story

to reach a Sublime Result.

Just ask the oak.

All 600 species.

III.

Our own story will not be written

in chronological order.

Love was never meant

to keep you in your comfort zone.

It was designed- to feed, challenge, grow,

and sustain you. To fracture you gently,

drown you in small increments.

Continental drift you into

Pure Consciousness.

And I am learning:

to have the patience

of geologic processes. My blood

turns to lava, my breath to ash,

my love to eons, to measures of time

and movement imperceptible

at most moments.

I learn to give you space;

the distance between:

two fixed geographic points,

being drawn by a convergence zone.

Inexorably, and with considerable

friction, hesitance, and stuck points.

We are such stuff

as the earth was made of.

Tomorrow.

IV.

And being human,

I also claim the impatience of lightning,

the insight, tell me where do we go,

from where did we journey,

tell me simply how to understand you,

and tell me today.

Lightning often kills lesser trees,

but scorches and shapes

the oak that is patient, resilient.

I open, unfurl in Fibronacci sequence-

not into you, but maybe

through you, through my own

interpretation. As valid as

anything ever was, as truthful

as my own consequences;

journeys undertaken, inexorably

in search of my own heart’s own

experience of life as a wild hickory

in a forest of majestic oak.

It is said that hearts must break

so that the gentle sacred words

may fall inside them.

V.

Since I have known you,

you have been the moon to

my body’s tides. Fluids in motion,

chemicals seeking formation

of life. I have a vast great continent

to offer you; entire nations of

thoughts, rules of law and

anarchy, coast to coast. And a

gentle place, Oasis,

more secure every month with the

knowledge that the nostalgic longing

for a supersalted ocean

to float effortlessly...

is not just a longing, but

a shared memory. We were designed

of stardust and seawater, born

into hardwood spires and leaves.

We came here to learn, teach,

Love, maybe.

Please, just hold my hand,

while we explore land masses.

I have only ever been exactly

and justly, rightfully, in dark nights

and sweet daydreams-

as specifically terrified

of fault lines-

as you.

 

Author's Note

translated into Spanish at:

http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/zorra_encantada/1591166/

Reviews

[daninstockholm]

Our landscapes are marked

by the presence of grand trees.

And what are trees,

but love stories written by terra firma

in praise of all the heavens offer?

Truly beautiful!! Powerful metaphors, beautiful imagery,, and so very well thought through and executed with the verbal grace of a gazelle. Can't wait to read more!

[Ken Simm.]

You must forge through time and experience to write what you have written here. to say I am impressed would be an understatement and therefore I feel no reason to state anything more about what is self evidently exceptional. This is a love poem but what a love poem!

[W.k.kortas]

Though the poem states "Our own story will not be written/in chronological order", there is an admirable internal logic here, especially in a piece dealing with affairs of the heart. There is considerable breadth here, and certainly no mere summation, but the final stanza brings the piece brilliantly to home, all the way to a two-word finish. Virtuoso work, nothing less.

[emmajoy]

' Our landscapes are marked - by the presence of grand trees. - And what are trees, - but love stories written by terra firma - in praise of all the heavens offer? '

How many times have I read your poetry, prose, thoughts, beliefs and been stunned?! But this, this is
your heart and mind singing the most beautiful aria!

To be honest, don't want t analyse its literary excellence or the font used, Rachel .. just want and need to read it over and over and hope your emotion might just rub off a little - oh to bathe in this most worthy yet subtle praise of lover come.

'Please, just hold my hand.. '