Reversible Universe

Perhaps sprawled in sunshine he dissolves, pours free of his shape. Sliding along her back and legs he fills her with the warmth of a shadow unmoored. Brief kiss, rough and real against her cheek he becomes one with all joy and ease, the one within her arms. He is the best of what is left for her: a little honey, a little sun.  

Maybe much as his fingertips once read the fine print of airy messages, she now proceeds with poise and self-possession, never again looking back the way she came. She misses him, yet refuses to be pulled in by grief’s pliable eye, and finds in each morning’s heart a home. Where is he now? some ask. Somewhere fluid and quick, not part of the sadness that sings in her, wrapped in knotted twine. He is part of night’s never-ending hum; the blueness, the newness, the spell of an endless summertime.

Perfume Saint

Perhaps while any poet can revive a wilted blossom or give the natural perfume of any flower to a scentless one, it may take a true saint to seize the color of there seen from here, the color of where we can never go, in which, without a word, the still here continues to flow into the dull, rushing sound that space and silence make, its footprints appearing as one unsleeping, ever pacing thought.

Or Maybe as the refreshing fragrance of rose wafts strongly from the center of her palms, the perfume saint extends her hands with a gesture of blessing which not even the flowers can touch. For as each person’s personal perfume gradually evolves, satin and sparkling as birdsong, if he or she will pause in the garden for long enough what is absent will soon appear as vivid and nameless as a bird in-between windows, not able to get out, yet not needing to.

http://www.meghanhowland.com/2013 

That Side of Life

Perhaps when morning sets in and the coolness of night moves out into the plumage of birds, we resolve once again to make a new start. Taking the hands of our sons and daughters we board a boat and sail off leaving the city behind until, as far as the eye can see, there is nothing else but sky.

Maybe here where we can write no postcards, we wonder, why is the sky is so grey? Is this the promised end? Along the horizon we glide as birds scarcely moving a wing, longing to cross into another age, to see that side of life that we could never see before. When darkness arrives we return to the lapping shore only to find the water has grown heavy and bitter with so many destinations to fulfill – water that tirelessly reflects the twitching lights of tall, glittering towers.