1.
I cannot deny,
I would not deny,
that I would climb
these mountains to find you
a seed in the sun,
our memories buried deep
in the husk.
I have come to you
to be loved to devastation.
I will pull you down from
your ravaging sun,
burn your cities down
to the blackened earth.
In those days was not our
language uncommon,
so that the world
yet wonders?
I cannot deny you,
no matter the loving,
I would not deny
anything for you,
even if it be my parting.
2.
Press yourself against these poor bones of mine,
a wildflower pressed within the leaves of this book.
the fragrance to float on the dusk filing the room.
A grass-hearted girl, I dreamed of you,
in the vernal air when the dogwood buds were coming forth.
I have been driven to love you since those
mysterious nights lay beside me in my virgin bed.
You were the match that struck a flame
in the strange and foreign lands that waited for you.
When I met you, the mountain was an effulgence.
I unleashed the wild buffalo on the prairie,
whipped up a sandstorm on the Sahara,
made the linden trees tremble in the Alps.
I strove to claim you by virtue of my love for you,
but leaves skirt and skitter and finally fly away
to secret places, addresses unknown.
I am without you, yet the buffalo still run,
the sandstorm still blows, and the lindens quake.
All that I have left is this wildflower, once pressed
between the leaves of this book.
I toss it into a coming wind, and it rides the light
into everything.
3.
The world is burning
and we two have survived
the ranting rivers of flame.
The ruination of the sun
is upon us,
the native grasses scorched
to lay bare the earth’s nakedness.
Find me, find me here.
Remember the sun,
our gentle mother,
light flowing from her apron,
when the blue-eyed grass
colored our bodies lavender
that bled into the night.
The mountains were deep
with lightless caves,
unmeasured night.
We knew one another,
I took shelter in your
body, your strong,
generous body,
in the seam where
twilight is sewn to dusk.
before the world burned,
before the last of our days.
4.
My dreams in isolation are fitful.
A growing motley collection of masks
on my desk.
COVID escapes my sight,
hidden alone in sterile caves
of brick and mortar.
We are carefully instructed.
Don’t touch.
Don’t walk so close.
Don’t breathe too deep.
The birds no longer come to
rest in the cypress.
Perhaps they’ve gone to find
another world less terrifying.
My dreams in isolation leave me restless.
I felt you come behind me at the
kitchen sink just tonight.
One hand at my breast,
your unshaven mouth
blazed a trail down my neck
onto my shoulder.
I forgot the death masks.
I breathed deeply of your scent:
the earth, the river, moss,
warm, amber scotch.
I blessed God for the memory.
Yes, this was enough.
It was enough to lift me
out of isolation into the
consolation of what may yet be.
It was enough to set the
chipping sparrow’s song ablaze
with something that reminded me
of hope.
5.
My casket of wrought iron
rests in a grove of poplars.
Roots are pushing,
in slow motion rushing,
vining through the iron
forged in fire,
a memory struck
on an anvil.
Time here becomes
more brief
whenever the west
bleeds crimson
and gold across
the blue breasted God.
Just call my name.
If I were to hear it
caress the mountains
and come down
racing with
the rivers,
if it were to sound
over the pines
and burst like a
storm cloud over
this land,
I would come out breaking,
taking hold of my portion,
an outlaw on the train bound
for mercy-land
and I would fly,
like the fugitive sparrow
I would fly.
I would come to you.
http://www.amazon.com/Doors-Carelessly-Left-Melissa-Chappell/dp/B08L3XBYLZ
