WINTER, 1997 (FOR CPK)
Hello old friend hello again, it's been a long time since the dance began
a long time down the calendar since the music played just for you
beneath the leaves of an autumn dream. and I've been twice a thousand miles
down roads of dream and dust, stood at the shores of distant bays and seas
looking out like a sailor's wife imagining sails, seeing eclipses and setting suns
on my knees in the city of angels I prayed for a vision
while blood ran dark in the gutter from veins opened by time's razor
and now the leaves turn again reminding me of when you first told me
you could not walk by my side if you walked in your truth
and all the years of my life fall away like leaves from trees
stiffening to dormancy and visions of futures fall cold
as the snows across my horizons, diminished
the days disappearing like the mountains behind the rising clouds.
(they don't know me at all, these ghosts and shadows
dancing around in the darkness, gleefully mocking my wish
to awaken in sunlight, in warmth, in your arms and in your sight)
but this road must be walked alone this road where you cannot yet follow
but I will take the memory, packed safely with my belongings,
in a knapsack of spiderwebs; your arms around me,
your flesh melting into mine, your eyes dimming the sun
as they stare into my heart, and your scent banishing winter forever,
and I'll remember walking hand in hand in the valley of the Rio Grande,
wandering the streets of Santa Fe with ancient ghosts and the tourists
gaudy against adobe walls lost in each other and in the day, forever.
© Linden Karl Gilbert 1996, 1997 - all rights reserved.
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