Mote

My lord used to come to me

He’d strike me like a match and leave me glowing

But he would not stay and love me only

So I scrubbed the vermillion from my hair

And went out into the world alone

I ran rampant through the streets, gone whore for love of him

If he would not be mine, I would taste everything

But the further I flung, the less I held onto

And now I have only the loss of his love

I am a mote in his eye

I am a catch in his sigh

I wanted too much

And I left him behind

I tear at myself but he gives me no comfort

I swear at myself but he makes no reply

If he will not find me then I will go to him

There’s only one road to the place he resides

I am a mote in his eye

I am a catch in his sigh

I wanted too much

And I left him behind

PLains

Gray on gray

Our dust leached bare by the days

The no longer precious porcelain

Of cast-off human clay

On the cold, hard, far side of nowhere

Our shades roam, rueful and knowing

There’s nowhere for us to be going

Except through time

All bars hold

There’s no tune left to unfold

An endless coda

Streams off the page, an alluvial plain

On the cold, hard, far side of nowhere

Our shades roam, rueful and knowing

There’s nowhere for us to be going

Except through time

rivers

From constant throb

To forgotten pulse

I’m losing my rhythm

From soft escape

To shallow scrape

Collapsing my hollows

In a cold nest of blankets

I’m cracking wide open

And rivers, and rivers, and rivers

Of all that I’ve known

Flow from me

On my own overflowing

I skip like a stone

Til I’m drawn into eddies of long ago