The creek
has swelled its banks
the water

now muddy mixed
with flotsam
and sticks

panics over rocks
swallowing
trees bushes

and other things
like points of focus

the language
we use to trumpet
the call or send up
a flare

leaving us nothing
more
then just a pose

hands to face
and
mouth agape

Whit Howland © 2020

AND THE WAY UP IS THE WAY DOWN

"Footfalls echo in the memory..."

I still see you
in the rose garden

reciting Elliot in
those magnificent tones

although death
gently erases you

so that the roses
can be seen

through you
though your voice remains

true and strong
a swallow flies

through your eyes
you nothing now

but a ghostly aid
to my faltering memory.

I still miss your body
the shape of you

sleeping beside me
curled like a question mark

into my dreaming
back.

Never got used to
an empty bed.

Find I have to imagine you
conjure you up.

A sleight of mind
the smoke and mirrors

of desire
and wanting.

I prune my roses
"the poet's wife."

How we always laughed
at such a name

when you could never
write a word

only quote
your adored Mr. Elliot.

I prune
a rose that rambles

and oh dear
I appear

to have snipped off
your head

fading as it was
I will imagine another.

Your voice impervious
to the  secateurs.

"...for the leaves were full
of children..."

the children we
never had.

We lived our life
as if we had a wisdom

of our own
knowing

"If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable."

You sang sweet
Songs under
Starry skies
And sweet love ties
I fell for you.
Your brilliant smile
So sadistic but
Hiding secrets
I could not discover
So undercover
Behind your disguise
And all your lies
I’ve found you.
Your bittersweet lips
And hands on my hips
You traced with your fingertips
The dips
In my back and all that i lack
You sang sweet
Songs.

I'm afraid of drowning.
So I don't swim
and claim I don't know how.
Yet here I am,
Daring to blissfully swim in you.
Wishing to drown in your grace.
Longing to be waterlogged
in all that is you.

Nobody save me.
I'm safe here.
I'm home.

The Earth is molting
And though today is a day
Marked by putting layers on
Rather than taking them off
Hidden does not mean gone.
She will shed her skins again
She will bloom and rise and blush
Rolling over in crunching leaves,
Turning her face,
And baring her arms to the sun
Giving it permission
To shine on her again.
Her seasons are only moltings
She does not lose herself in them
And watching gives me hope.
She'll reemerge
And I, like her
Will too.

I picture everything  vividly in my mind
your lips on my shoulder
your eyes laying on me
together, in a small simple apartment
drinking red wine and wanting each other
we see fire in our eyes, we have the world
making art or making love
it's both delicate and subtle
we become one - body, mind, spirit
it's you and me and nothing in between
nothing around us
except
lust