And So I Say

I

Suspicion pulses from those gathered here for trial

My companion believes I’m fair, she thinks I will be good

She has been wrong before—she will be so, again

These others know all that for truth

I say make your judgment, if you will

I freely offer all my sins and pleasures

I do not know what you will do, yet I think that I can bear it

But if the verdict should somehow be that I am not so cruel as charged,

Let the record show you did your best and I did mine

II

What I have to say will have to do

for now,

for this,

for you.

This place is rich

and full of evening dark, and vast

and makes a cozy home

for transient souls,

which is to say

it is a nameless place

for nameless things

from where I wrote to you

before I became the bit that prowled your skin

and kissed so light and tender

you felt no sudden thrill or lasting heat;

just the little boost that comes with the sweet ripening of fruit.

III

What the children endure

is unendurable

They transcend

what cannot be survived.

And we know from knowing them

that were they not tough as turtles,

nor fleet as flying things,

nor comfortable as Friday fish,

nor relentless as wind,

nor guileless as tomorrow’s dreams

of tomorrow,

we could not have gone to there and back,

nor made so much of time.

IV

The earth around us warms.

Our trembling cells

echo in waves

and wrinkle the land.

Soon we will slip our way

to the hot and wet and sweet place of reimagining

and emerge again to repopulate the evening dark.