The artist leaned in slowly
to his daughter’s sculpted visage,
placed a slender leaf of gold
across her ceramic brow
and gently pressed it with his brush.

But for all his art and craft he knew
no gilder’s foil was half so dear
as the child with half-closed eyes –
with mother’s tender brush
caressing strands of finest gold -
singing her to sleep.

your small body sinks into my arms
I will hold you as long as I am able
I promise to hold you close and safe
until you awaken to run away to explore
my little adventurer I love you,
let the beating of my heart soothe you to sleep
i will hold you through toothaches and heartaches

your cries break my heart
and I hold you close until
you whimper into sleep

my gentle swaying and rhythm of my heart
guide you to sleep

my daughter,  I hope someday you
discover that the Divine Presence
holds you safe and close like I do

There will be times
I will not be with you
But remember that God
is always with you

I don't know.
I don't know,
what it feels like to love as a parent,
because my experience is limited by my experiences.

I haven't had the chance to experience parenthood,
however existence is shared by all existing things,
and whenever I observe the existence of parenthood,
Many things are shared with me.
Good and Bad.

It is here I begin to understand what a child is to a parent.

A child is like the sun,
to its parents sea.

The brighter a child shines,
the deeper its rays penetrate,
the layers of the sea.

And you may wonder,
How does the sun get to shine bright?

The sun gets to shine bright,
Through the love, understanding and acceptance of the sea.

You, dear, my life, and my true love forever
Hold keys to bonds that none other can sever
You are: reason to wed, or even to die,
The laugh in my belly, the tear in my eye,
The one single being who knows me, all through.
And all of my love, dear, is due only you

When first I encountered your radiant charms,
I knew I must hold you, my love, in my arms
And never relinquish this perfect embrace!
‘Lest I should miss kissing your smile and your face,
And then could I give of my self nevermore.
All other loves lack, save the one I adore.

My foresight and function dulls daily, my bride,
And fails, for your beauty should oft’ be descried,
And my lips fail to offer the reverent speech
This lack, bind it up, Oh, my God, I beseech!
But there is the rub, for although I don’t say-
I still feel a thrill when we’re still; when we play…

This heart is still filled when you come home, my Love.
Each day, it’s made clear, I should praise God above
For granting me someone whose soul matches mine,
Whose embrace is holy, whose kiss is divine,
This Love we have found, all other loves seek! -
The lovers of old and the Poet’s mystique

And now that our love is begetting new souls,
I thrill at the thought!  And I cherish our roles!
The glint in your eyes, it unveils motherhood,
Your tenderness shows and your love’s understood,
Our future envisioned, joy fills my whole being!
Passion for you trumps my hearing or seeing!

So then, let it be known to our progeny:
That our love is true and there never could be
Another love lasting through future or past,
That’s truer or deeper than ours, or as vast!
Let none through the ages e’er have cause to doubt
My love for my dear one ‘till breath shall run out.

And when I lay dying, if you have gone first
Pray God will have mercy and make my heart burst
Or if it is I who has gone on ahead,
I pray that eternity makes, for the dead,
The time seem an instant, so when I arrive,
I’ll turn and behold you, forever alive!

I was given a gift; the gift of guilt.
To use freely and often.
I did. I do.
A member of the club that no one wants to join.

My gift is pretty
Dependent on words.
On thoughts.
On her, him, them.

On sticking plasters carefully stretched
Over still weeping wounds.
Quiet now.
Yet visibly hidden.

love simply is
given without expectations
holding my baby girl

our hearts beat as one
our chests close together
the falling and rising of our chests
synching into a rhythm

our hearts are dancing as one
with it's unique individual flavor
and adding spice and fun into my solitary life
my heart skips a beat

our breaths go in and out
falling and rising like the great ocean
always flowing with mysterious motion
each breath unique and new

I wrote all these words,
when I could have simply said
"I love you"

You killed my heart, what did you do to me? My own skin seems someone else’s, and these eyes, they seem like strangers glaring back at me. When my nails tap the porcelain leaned against my waist they echo harshly. I feel my hair that somehow feels like straw. The long strands wire down like rope. When once I knew warmth there is only distance, not even the cold.

How long to have gone without that touch so pure. ******* to the lungs drawing in this air, my breath is taking an eternity leaving my chest. This self knows nothing of it. What has it done to me, this life of this body it longs so dearly to complete the song of her mother. I chose not to make it exist, like all the ones before them. We just are. Sometimes we take that life, this blood surging for naught, pretending it had meant nothing.
These glazed eyes, my callous soul seen too much knows too little. Oh this curse of blessed life. This blessing is cold to my nose pressed against the glass, blowing fogged stains. When will I know this comfort of loving what someone else chose to exist? I didn’t know what it took to keep inhaling, this sacred air, and these holy breaths. The decrepit guard of clergy took these words from us. Outside our choice, much like our parents, our creators, separate from our will. What are we then, but helpless children flailing in thin air?
I gave it all my being, that my teeth and tongue meant for sacrifice of sacred love that was my choice yet not a choice to want, merely whom to give it to. To give and not taking is all that is necessary for me. I never wanted to want, from him, the clear brown eyes that he hurt, though it ended up this way. Feeling hands, soft skin and the touch of warmth. Our starving bodies knew our desires.

The cold glass of this mirror, stripes and wipes on top of my reflected eyes looking back, she confronts me with my own emptiness. What was real will remain past, my distance dystopian darkened light. The porcelain gleams around my veined hands, and I had warmth dissipating to it. My lips once told long stories and cradled my voice through darkness, caressed his skin and soft hairs to sleep. But what am I now, if only I can recount these miseries? That I had not my visor on my own heart but on his bliss and pain. Who can I tell when I am alone what happiness once meant to me? How the joy comes from fleeting concerns and then leaves without a word for parting. I know they will come back to dance with me in the night kissed grass. My bare feet have taken its colour, and when they get cold the veined hands hold them in their cradling motions. The moon comes out to greet this marvellous sense of awareness and freedom until she sets before the sun again. This night air knows that I know her. When I was solitary once and knew all inches of my own heart. No one in sight, chipping away pieces with the chisel I gave him. No one knows my heart so I will teach myself yet again to see it as it is.

Me. Myself. My reflected image.

© March 31st