poem – Page 116 – Hearts Still Care

Love’s Complexity.

As a child, I felt crestfallen seeing

A film on a lioness a woman tames;

It needed a graver understanding

Of how love chooses to play its mean games.

Today I saw a similar story:

How a boy watches, broken-heartedly,

His pet, in whom he fostered love’s glory,

For its own safety, swimming back to sea.

It is thus I guess that it is to be:

Despite the pain and to its core be true,

There comes a time to just stand back and see

If pulling back gets me closer to you.

Love surely has its own complexity:

To get it all, one has to set it free.

The drops splash atop sleeping leaves,
Like beats measuring song;
The grey sky its burden relieves
And the rain falls for long.

A bird’s laid an egg in mom’s flowers;
She thinks it’s safe and well;
The poor thing doesn’t know it’s just hours
Before it’s reduced to a shell.

The frightened eyes are red and bright,
Unblinking, full of fear;
But instinctual love gives it might,
It moves not though I’m near.

My dog sees it and pounces fast
I restrain her, the bird flies!
Its own survival wins at last:
Love leaves, life’s lost, hope dies.

The grey sky turns dark as the trees,
The rain drops aren’t as strong,
They splash still atop sleeping leaves,
With beats of a new song.

My night prepares me for Hope,
Staying awake in silence,
With eyes wide open,
Has made me appreciate the dark.

Loneliness corresponds.

Staying awake prepares me.

Through the past, I built my hope on blue skies and the sun.
In years, I realised the blue could turn grey,
And the sun could burn and set.

The dreams night bestowed
Were invisible by day.

So I am awake,
When the world about me
Blissfully dreams on.

Alone – doing whatever it is I do –
Staying awake at night,
Sleeping through mornings instead.

Quiet night prepares me,
For the rest of life ahead.

5th November 2007.