poem 48

There is no return to Then.
There is only Now.

what i make
what you make
what we make

Then—fantasy
when in actuality
what we lost
is freedom to hug
anyone everyone

we carry what we always carry
crazy quilt of love joy regret guilt
unfathomable ecstasy despair
burning agonies soothing peace
bottoming out comfort solitude
communal leaning family
broken or thickly stranded
war jealousy hate cruelty
driven achievements hollow
useless dying glows we burnish
cup hands around flames we
imagine not existent insistent
love carries us unless we succumb
in sinful seas of greed tempting us
beyond reason still there’s love
all this and far more we carry
what we have no real words for
what we long to set down
and do not dare not too afraid
of being suddenly freed trapped
Forever

Now—an enormous yawning universe
takes a breath we lean away from
want to stifle as we run terrified run
wildly towards when given courage
by bright new days rainy shiny dawns
we want to race across deserts as if distant
ranges of possibility hold only comfort
prosperity without risks challenges
new griefs new moral dilemmas
complexities we can not yet see
as if we can leave all that far behind
as far behind as our fantasized Then
we so long for tie our ankles to
selectively dragging a web of longing
there is no return yet time measures us
as it pours through ancestors fingers
let fall what may lean into their ghost
arms lay our heads on their broad misty
shoulders their whispers echo vibrate
our breasts warns us keep potatoes from
rot yourself from moral blight and greed
your life only a tossed grain rippling rings
no greater no less than any other grain
winds whisper winds whisper winds whisper
remember Love remember Love remember Love