in blue grass
in blue grass i hear your
name whispered in the
secret inflections of
languages yet unlearnt.
in blue grass you are
the passing of day and night,
the surprise of cloud and shadow,
the motion of light in water.
time has marked you as
she has marked me,
we two harried and hectored,
that arrow begun her downward curve.
in blue grass run
these walls your bones,
these rivers your blood,
these hills your body.
•
i have forgotten myself among the
great grey towers of
cities and the streets and the
press of blank faces.
i have forgotten myself
in that place of dust,
have loosed my soul into
vanity and empty promise.
I have forgotten myself and
the custom of my youth,
my arrogant ways and
my foolish passions.
i am called home now by
that which I cannot face:
my mother is dying,
settling up accounts.
•
you are there one day,
family of sorts,
sharing this thing that
courses beneath our flesh.
a phantom, you
who stayed and whose
courage far outpaced mine,
even as I thought myself your better.
in blue grass you dance the
ancient dance of harvest, hunt and hearth,
casting life to ground
even as you pluck life from it.
we speak to each other
those mumbling things of
desire and wish and dream,
are become doer and deed.
•
in blue grass i feel the touch
of your eyes, lips, fingers,
the touch of memory,
of the past that could have been.
in blue grass i
lay with you and we are
become those walls, those rivers, those hills,
knit close and closer still.
In the secret hollows
of your stalwart body
i lose myself and am
found again.
in blue grass you have
come to me,
my salvation and
my redemption.