Traveling with the Companions Longing & Gratitude

The longer it is,
The more missing there is
And the more slippage
Into the awayness
That is the story of my life
It becomes.

Which is a punishment
And a thing which shows me
How inadequate my grasp
Upon a thing which dissolves
With grasping.

Which is the usual heartbreak
And clinging to the platform
Instead of just jumping on the train.

When I was young
It was promised me,
That someday before the end,
I'd get on that train and never
Stop riding it until...

I had every part of me and the world
Spun together in a vast tapestry,
Which I would wear as a robe
Wrapped around me while I
Danced on a hilltop in the wind.

Sometimes I feel I'm getting close
To arriving,
And then I fall right off again,
And hundreds of me laugh
In my direction.

This is the wheezy breathing of
The paradox,
Always and never
Getting closer to the edge.

On earth as a body,
The reality of something
Like a dream trying to be
Forged out of a molecular mess
Isn't much.

Not in comparison
To the crushing magnetism of
Some possible enigmatic future
Or richly filtered past.

Which we cling to or
Try to attract with the energy
We sling out like a net into
The lake of our longing.

Except there's a trailback
From the litter hearts made
As they swam past.

Which is presently real,
Often way too much to stand,
And somehow never nearly enough.

Also Hell keeps showing up
Right at the edge of the vision.
Making for many-layered significance,
Deep doubts and all that derision.

Then there is the matter of
My petty jealousies
Eating away on images in my head
Of you seeking after all the
(Other) women under the sun.

Or along the wires and
Beneath the moon,
Trying to shove the small and
Loosely tangled me
Out of your way.

I suppose your search to be
Hotly bedazzled.
Or sadly bereft
And grasping.

I can scamper happily with
The seeking scintillation part
And rest in the rows of the
Plowed present in it.

My trouble here comes
Slightly later in the tale
When you lose yourself
In the pools of their faces,
And start making
Dreams and promises
Out of their words.

I watch as you and I grow smaller,
And our story crumbles
Slowly into simple soundbite words
And dim seemings.

It's not always easy
Being easy. And then, sometimes
Easy isn't easy at all,
As the way that is required is often
Hardest of all.

But despite all my resonant knowings
Of love and the nature of things,
I still want you all for myself.

Which is truly selfish of me
And not possible to even ask for
Never mind actually get.

Believe me, I know;
This threshold is not new
And I have been stuck upon it before.

And if I can't quite release
And open this,
It can only serve against us,
And to hurt you.

At which I recoil in horror trying
To separate and abandon
Myself by the roadside.

I am beside her,
Becoming that madwoman running
To someplace lonely but "safe."

Which leaves me sitting
On the grassy knoll
Contemplating the trajectory
Of the tragedy.

Or the arc of the arrangement,
Which somehow got sealed and
Delivered without my signature.

Or yours.

But is apparently the plan
Of a loving god.

Or the consensus of a collection
Of inept human beings.

Despite these triangulations,
And more real than they,
Is the simple fact that I miss you more vastly
Than great expanses of stars.

Mostly I miss the way you
Would look into my eyes,
And I'd know you could
Sometimes actually see
My All Of Me.

And I'd look back,
A glassy mirror pool filled
With the very same
Cup that was big enough to contain
Everything.

In the falling down of my belly
And the flying gasp of my heart,
I could feel us on the trapeze
Join and catch each other
Even if only for a moment
Transcend the tug of gravity.

And I miss the times of laughing
With the same laugh
At the very same thing --
That thing
Behind the thing.

Being beside you is like standing
Naked in a cascade of so many
Small and huge things
Flooding and collapsing into
My empty spaces all at once.

In the moments like these,
I could feel myself return to myself --
With the pieces in
The right order at last.

Which for me was most of
All I ever really needed.

And awed me into silence,
Thank you.

You as a pile of gifts in my life
More vastly colored than any
I had hoped or even asked for
And had only started opening
When the party started breaking up.

Your ways and means are
Treasure to me beyond what you
Might recognize or see.

Beyond the lover labels,
Existing in the realm of
Simply You and Me,
Has grown a fated kingdom
Faceted by our intent and synastry.

Resonating with the harmonies
And cacophonies
Of our two songs entwined.

Your words, eyes, and hands
Touching and opening parts in me
Beyond the reach of all who have
Ever dared or tried.

Through your music and sighs
Roguish murders and then replies,
The world before me has
Shuddered and bent,
Revealed itself unfolding and spent.

Sometimes with a whisper
Or a smile.
Sometimes with a thunder
Or a shout.

I've heard you --
Strange Magic.
And will never forget.

There is sadness now
For the connections and flow,
In time reduced to metered happenings
On certain days or moments
When you are lonely
Or able.

Or a pale half-light when sometimes
I grow weary of the distance and ask for
Whatever you are
Strong enough to stand.
Or choose.

I hope we might forgive each other
For our troubles here on earth --
Both of us with years of loneliness
And great big fears from
Trying to keep soft parts unfingered.

(Perhaps that's the trouble right there).

And please forgive me for the telling,
Which sometimes makes all of it
More (or Less) real.

I guess none of this can fit easily
Into your wooden boxes of practicality
And parchment lists of requirements,
Or all those important boy-girl power dynamics
Of which you speak.

But my heart knows nothing of these.

It simply longs and pines,
And wishes for Home.
Relief. Sweetness.

You in my eyes
And mine in yours.

Perhaps I'm just a silly girl
Being a tarot card fool,
Dreaming of the impossible wishing
After missing the spaces between...
The kissing.

I know I was born to love you,
Among my list of things.
I lay it imperfect at your feet
To pick up as you are able.

Even if you never ever hear me
From this far away,
Or believe me
Or trust me
Or anything else
At all,
It's yours.

© 2001 Koko Jaeger