Longing to Climb

Tender, full, closed eyes

swaying like meadows—I lay down

I can’t open my heart’s door

and love is becoming

like heaps of wretched dishes

by the overflowing sink

too much to comprehend

in too little time

I long to drift away downriver

on a plastic barrel.

I long for a tree branch—

I long to hold the tiniest

ladybug forever and name it

and make pets of elusive spiders

I long to live alone with the wild berry

I long to strand myself

on an island and peel

the stars’ messages like tree bark

I long to make my ink pen a wand

darkness crumples like tissue paper

as yesterday’s balloons reach the floor

and somebody’s dying far away

I wander in empty ecstasy

black and white

ink lines, letters, writing

I sew my roots in between

the poppy and the dandelion

my words, ripe and black as figs

as fluid as leaves on water

I write everything I’m not—

pink and purple plum sunsets, birthday clouds

all images formed by eyes

from formless stars

I breathe at the foot of the evergreen

longing to climb

and love is becoming rare,

and I am becoming everything I don’t know

as I lay down in despair

longing flows on in me—

then again, love is becoming

suddenly, not so hard to find

ordinary as breath

and everything I do forever

sleep, eat, drink water

moon cycles, winter and summer.

Love is becoming

like my name—ordinary

and not hard to say

but I am contained

in every fire

in love’s silent river.