Blue River Review: three poems
moon mountain
i think of you beloved and think of blue feathers,
sun breeze, sighing through shade and grass, bird song
clear as stars stay burning, whether or not we see them.
do you remember the spring we drove ten hours
toward mountains to breathe? we buried stones
in earth at night and hummed ourselves to sleep.
there may have been a cigarette. i’m certain
there were lemons. in the morning, you walked
us through mud and berries and toward a tree
whose trunk had torn itself in two insisting
on its chances, leaving at its heart a wound
that grew into a nest. you said this one is you.
i give me something soft
dahlia gathered me bloomstruck
by the thick of it
for once i say i need you here
(i am vining toward repair)
what i want for you is spacious
home lush and greening sweetly
i leave fuschia at your door
walk beneath whatever sky
this tender revolution
what if i told you what i meant by that exactly?
that when i say this tender revolution i am saying
i’ve been changed, i’ve changed. i have chosen
something else. i am bigger than before i think
or big enough to hold me, having learned i think
to be me wholly and in so doing learned i hope
to see you, holy, holy, fully as you are, my loving
softly, gently, holy, whole, unwanting—what i want
to say is take my time, i’m finished counting.
all i think i need i have.
