You raise your cup without looking
assured I will receive it.
This gesture says it all,
how we are together
with no need to tear things down,
to feed the beast of not belonging.
Some days the tide runs deep,
highs and lows much greater.
They say it is the moon
but I wonder about swirling water
and the desire pulling it toward the sea.
The tide runs so swift, perhaps
we too can be without restraint,
the moon of our gravitation
the touch of your hand
on a teacup.

We’re chum for the gods,
dropped into the sea
to lure out the beauty
stored in deep water
from before time began
when only mineral
and fire ruled the earth.
She can’t resist
the sparkling scales
of our foolish wit,
the way we twist and turn
in shifting currents,
singing to her
of the times
we walked together,
longing for her graceful hands
to lift us once more
onto the sunlit shore
of our belonging.

We can drive our fate
into the wall of the world
or find our way
like water around rock.
Beyond the wall
a spread of forest
and rushing wind,
the sound of rivers
and clatter of bird wing.
Soften like water,
follow the stone path,
a sheer fall of open air,
the freedom of light.

I am the face behind the face,
the watcher behind eyes.
I’ll slip this skin
like a bright fish
glistening in the sun,
wriggling free of your hands
back into the deep pool,
a glint of gold and silver
darting through the stream.
That color, that liquid,
the shining skin, that is me
but not all of me;
I am what the river cannot hold.
I swim inside this skin
but I’ll slip it soon
and take another.
The stars will take me
and warm sand
waiting at the shore.
The deep sea will take me
and trails along the mountain.
Where I go you will not follow
yet I’ll break from the brush
to see you once more,
a deer with her fawns
crossing the road
thin legged and lithe
then like a spirit wind
return to the forest.

Sometimes you choose
and sometimes you don’t,
you chase after life
when all you want
may be hidden beside you.
Go ahead and make your plans;
somewhere along the road
where the pavement gives out
you might have to walk
and what you didn’t choose
may find you,
the fear of that sucking
like a trap below the sea.
You might drown
in what you didn’t want
or you may find yourself
in the old woman
with her sorrows,
the bright faced children
adopted from horror
eyes dancing with light,
or you may not,
its up to you
even when you don’t choose.