Lovely Terror

A poem for you, oldest friend,
late at night in this grape dark
alive with songs of suffering and light
and dreams of barefoot dancers
come to squeeze the last heady juices
from plump globes, each a thing itself,
each a song you taught me,
a symphony that brought me to tears
and bade me plant this for you, dear.

Another lily for remembering
how to praise our mutilated world
made graceful by what we have learnt
to love again,
you and I, explorers of the infinite,
enlarged by the beauty of every day.

Content to sit here
and greet simply the soul
who has known me
since those first soft piano strokes,
that month in summer
when I had lilies in my flat
and remembered you,
poured my love into this page;
a seed,
a clue left so that I don’t forget
to love and love and love again
this broken world
or what it felt like,
somewhere in the dark terror,
to feel that we belong.

TRACE

Country of My Skull