if they could see me now . . .

. . . would they care, are they there, why should I bother? But. Oh I do! For I loved them then and now still, the characters and audience of my strut with fans otherwise naked across the stages of my life. All of it. Celebrated now for every moment.

We talked last evening for hours, we becoming we, two children whose whispers, laughs and sighs seem now a longing for these moments and we’ve not yet kissed. She the incomprehensible poem everything we shared, the looks across that which divided us then. Her hopeless smile at my attempted seductions erupting into a blaze spontaneously blinding.

If I tell you too much, I’ll bore you, and that I do not want, since for me you are my unborn brother/sister, children long gone. For whom I sense myself writing especially and oddly the one abandoned floated piecemeal particles in the sewers of Manhattan. That island bartered for beads and trinkets possibly a steel ax head or two between greed to own and those who knew nothing of proprietorship indigenous.

Matched, point-by-point, as like dancing in front of a perfect mirror but different for she is her and I am what? The peace quiet confident joy I know now. Feeling safe in her regard twenty five hundred miles away. Two time zones darker and sooner to see the light before mine as she exhausted nears sleep . . . like my son, the two daughters, and wife, I never knew that way; to kiss their foreheads and bless their sleep.

Long or short never to be seen again.

As I learned chess—giving one more move before defeat. I would fence with, or joust, mostly Jesuits—those I admired. Only now recognizing seduction of myself. In some sense calling to them like Rapunzel to drop down her hair, a rescue rope, up which I could climb for heaven, haven, a simple sense of being well; when it had never happened before.

Hand in glove is a poor analogy since we are spiritually one flesh. Hands touching opposite sides of a body soon growing cold. Welded and wed veterans of life as lived and departed ergo able to bear the terror of life unrealized and unlived between us . . . but I speak merely for myself: this peace and love I know.

OK! Since words are important to me, it was never really seduction but flirting—with neither malice, forethought  or intent, but what? Acknowledgment beyond “I See You” Or a ritual blessing of that which is holy wholly within you. In dreams I’ve looked into the eyes of the most perfect man. Now finding the numinous within all. Knowing when it is happening: my mouth is lubricious, speech deepens and palms grow more than warm—afire with love for life in whatever form is before me.

Even now as I type—these palms singe my thighs as I write. Can it get any better than this?

Of course it can. We of the West have our own koans, short, pithy, subject to abuse and misunderstanding. My meaning is why do we presume the belief and faith of others wearing it as a costume. But now even I wonder what people mean when they wear the cross or say, “I am Christian.” That being between them and The All.

I ain’t nothing, certainly no judge, but you'd think so since I am so free to make fun of those who upon larded posteriors pretend to mediate the future.

But then, what future?

No. I’m not seductive, nor a flirt, but touch people being a people person, not a used car salesperson selling vehicles sans engines; spit and polish, hair pins and all otherwise. Of the hundreds if not thousands here and there across the pond around the world I’ve touched those few who scalded turned in outrage are remembered fondly. In deference to M: I “^@&!” with people, messing about, in play and love; P returns the real deal. Volley, point, set, match.

And now envisioning hovering over her recumbency I gingerly brush aside a stray hair and love her sleeping . . . as I do and did whispering; be well be blessed be kind to one another, to all my children.

Two chinks, toeholds  in the impossible (for me) vertical greased glass (endless) cliff face of poetry opening all doors now:

"Man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" - Browning, Robert

"If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain." - Dickinson

. . . and then and then there is Rumi, of course, obviously love

for these moments ecstatic carrying over into all time my voiceless love

Sufficient

for what else would one surrender one’s sole soul upon the flesh of dead trees in libraries vital

. . . that you might read and thus find an image of yourself not alone

gazing into the eyes of that which is given you

you yourself singular

be yourself truly

130516 MDT 23:32 if they could see me now

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved