disconsolate as I depart

my fingers struggle mightily with these keys
as the petrification begins,
but still, there might someday be something useful
to be gleaned from this, some glimmer of something;
and as always, I am dutiful,
I am the last one to leave the scene of the crime,
absorbing every detail, my mental vacuum
sucking up every bit,
recording
recording
recording
testing one two three

he pushed,
and I pulled,
and between us, we now have four empty hands,
having managed to do not much but tear You apart;
who could live with this?
who could go another day,
with Your blood on their hands?

over millennia, You and I, playing cat and mouse, playfully
playing house, challenging each other to love's brightly-colored games,
all tried-and-true, even though I forget all their names;
one lifetime together, and two apart, yet
each time we found each other, it was never a new start:
we knew each other like the moccasin knows the foot,
like the glove knows the hand,
like the hourglass feels each tumbling grain of sand;

and yet, this time, this time it hurts like never before,
like the window keeps slamming shut,
in perfect syncopation with the heavy door,
and I sit here, my mind on fire and my heart on the floor,
and I wish it were not so,
that You felt that You had to go,
I wish that it were not so,
wish that it were not so;

of course, this life has been just another in such a long string,
appropriate for much and yet apropos of nothing;
another testing ground for philosophy,
another set of challenges for You and for me:
charting the hidden paths of love's deepest courses,
holding each other so close in spite of wild horses,
living in each other's hearts and arms so comfortably,
seeing everything at once, knowing just what to be,
to be the alpha and the omega of two beating hearts,
the sine qua non of passion's endless starts and stops,
actors enabled by fevered pitches without any need of props;

and I told You, even as I begged you to stay,
I vowed that if You left, that I would follow,
that today melts into tomorrow's sorrow, and yet even so,
if You left, that then I too would go,
and so I will, I am leaving tonight,
hot on Your trail, following the wisp of vapor that is Your tail,
taking in Your scent, as You make your descent,
breathing in once again, as You breathe out,
and it being fresh this time, I know I will catch up to You,
if it is the last immortal thing that I ever do;

then there is the matter of our six orphans left behind,
what is to become of them?
they are left in capable hands, You told me,
and although I could not accept such glibly,
I acceded to Your assertions, and pray only that You were,
once again, entirely correct, flawless in Your estimation
of cause and effect, of how things turn out, century after century;

I shall be with You again soon, mi amor,
Loving you True, siempre.



December 7, 2009, for the Wifey. False alarm, but the path lies waiting.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.