THE LOVE THAT NOW WILL NOT SHUT UP...

I.

A “leap of faith” is more than just a phrase;
It’s inner truth that seeks an outward sign.
That sign need not show forth our doubt and fear,
But we can’t leap until they’re overcome.
Unless we leap, death dogs us all our days;
Unless we face the darkness, we go blind.
Some truth performs a dreadful strip-tease here,
Reveals its parts to mask the ghastly sum…
We may not wait till we know all its ways,
Or time rolls on and we are left behind.
Each “leap of faith” makes some new epoch clear,
Old times go by, old dreams and limbs go numb.
New life is joy and light, but somethings’s lost,
And we deny that price at bitter cost.


II.

Emotions have a truth you can’t deny;
You hold it, color memories to fit—
That truth’s a snapshot of a single moment,
Truth too small to hear when voices blend.
A larger truth will root in longer time,
May even force opposing times to knit
Though powers conspire to crucify it—
No truth worthy of the name will not offend.
A poem catches passions on the fly,
May catch a moment’s truth, preserving it.
That truth may melt a heart, but even so,
It flares up, flies up, burns up in the end.
Our passions, poems, truths, in combination
Bear witness to a larger conflagration.


III.

The snow has melted, gray skies yield to blue,
The birds put on their Sunday best and preen,
The trees unfurl their tiny flags of green,
And all around, dead things yield to the new.
There is one sad exception:
In my beard, there’s more white than there was,
My aging skin is dull, my eyes are grayer, dimmer.
Sin and sorrow have left traces, as I feared.
I should look in the mirror and see death. I don’t.
Beneath the gray and sagging flesh,
My soul has made it through the winter, been made whole,
And blooms in glory with each wheezing breath.
Dead things yield to the new.
I am alive, and resurrected, long to live and thrive.


IV.

The sun and moon bear witness to the day,
The seasons in their turn proclaim the year;
In sequence they combine to form a whole
Far greater than the parts we see in turn.
I look back and I don’t know what to say:
The year past brought me out of death and fear,
Made Pantaloon play lover, made the role delightful,
Made me love the lines I learned.
But more than that: I know the role I play.
My last two years are one—what blossoms here is love:
My soil, my bloom, and fruit.
My soul transformed is still the same—
A truth that burns.
My guilty sorrow, anger, fear, despair,
Are just the night that make this day so fair.
C