Why do I love you, you ask (For Jena)

Why Do I Love You, You Ask (for Jena)

what gathers round us?

somewhere in the small sky there is a bit of unreal

view

laced with such a flaming of colors that

this bit of space becomes in the mind’s formation

the whole sweep of possible views not hemmed in

by some flat horizon.

what gathers around us?

we do not choose love but are given to its appetite…

the sky-image, the small space of flaming colors,

becomes that thing of love we attach ourselves to

so that she is the whole sweep of views not hemmed

in…

and to take that little space away

would collapse the sky itself around us.

we do not question the luster or that section of sky

which gave us that flaming out. Instead, we follow

with our eyes the curled ends

of the multi-chromed

flames and do not question the source.

she only knew she were a small bit of the universe

and had no way to see the stuff which filled the corners

of that sky

above me with a peacock’s display of brilliance

Opening

What of belief?

Stars were corners of windows that gathered dust.

Out of air and a false

dead dawn the belief life made

was slow and diligent inside us against the vagaries

of that daily breath.

Belief.

Choosing to surrender to the possible death of belief

we are challenged to find grace as one is challenged

to see

in the full-flung pageantry of an emperor’s cloak

the dirty fingers that stitched such stuff as would

cover

a royal beast.

The day swallows the night’s tail and is ensnared

in its own trap, perpetually rising and not undoing

the actions

of life that would call its existence a day.