_

(from Jan 06)

she left
her coat behind
on a blue snowbank
she pounded down the winter plains
they broke away to dusty canyons
filled with dry sunlight
under her feet
as she ran

i'd watched her stand in church,
her face was
painful in its purity
she was all
fire and proud young bones
and shorn hair and sweet voice

my heart quiet within me measured
my shrinking soul in the presence
of hers, giant

next evening i flew away
under cover of darkness, no one heard
my ascending, my landing,
where I fell and
gathered my brokenness in the shade of mountains,
i find myself on the side where
it always rains, where fog is softer than
sunlight, greenest in the sea

where i'd spend my long silence
and she'd steal, fierce in her loudness,
through my heart's eye, and whisper terribly,
you and i, we are two, who dared
i to run into the sun
you into the rain