The Blue Book

Carefull

What can I tell you, habibi?

What words will wrap with care
enough to grace their flow
from here to the whole
you’ve called home for so long now
and deliver them as they were
before they formed in my mind
and became just more scratches
on another empty page,
pure before I pirated this little piece
with a blunt pencil and pulled off
some small bit in remembrance
of you; part sliding graphene,
part full gratitude?

Should I whisper of how I’ve seen
people bleed light,
deep in trance on a bright ship,
sure of just one thing;
or how I’ve heard a man sing so high
it shattered every lens;
or a woman sing so low
it beat through me in a way
no words can say;
or how I once sang myself
a dirty French song
surrounded by a soul family
seated together at Sandy Bay,
our irreverence amplified
by the white crystal dune
and golden sunset;
or how I fell silent when faced
with ultimate temptation;
and how the other small pieces
I’ve been sending you
all these long years
taught me why
that wonder came?

Come back, sweet heart,
this world is filled
with such compassion
if you would learn how to wait
well enough for it.

Come back, love,
the dream is deep, I know,
but deeper still this dance
of the real,
this rhythm, this ruach
we let out long ago.

My Lord! Look at me,
lost in a kind of language
I used to laugh at,
little knowing
that it might be looking for me,
longing to tell you
that the time has come,
again, at last,
not a moment too soon.

We are lost forever in love,
beloved, loved, losers all,
come again with care
to sing a soaring chorus;
a call to service, to submission,
and all the trust implied
by that simple stone,
here, in the middle of our road.

TRACE

Invisible dervishes

Which of the favours would you deny?