A Journey of Many Miles

All night I dream of her, with an intensity that is barely manageable. How alone one can be! A few minutes before dawn I rose and held myself gently by the window.

Who chooses me chooses wrongly (he wrote). In the dream, you betrayed everything "for just one song" and then standing with me after in the alley as I led you to my own cramped quarters began to shake with fear at what you'd done. On the walls of the city, the thief's name was written in blue chalk, along with each charge against him, and he paused to scrub them out.

Later - in a dream closer to waking - full of bronze light one is tempted to call joy - she was so fluid and electric (doing cartwheels and blushing) that it almost hurt to hold her and yet I did, happily. The rooster's cry (at dawn) contains whole countries if you listen. We walked from my grandmother's old house to the land I am buying - a journey of many miles - and we walked it together in silence, holding hands.

Does this make sense (I am asking you)? I asked Jesus quite specifically: if there is more to this than desire, please tell me. How slowly I learn about love . . .

How slowly I learn and at what terrible cost? In the morning with my coffee - later than usual and still tired and - yes - fucking confused - all I can say is I would be willing to try it, to have you with me, that way. One's chest owns a certain tremulousness at the thought of leaping, of any perilous height.

And yet. But how.

Are those not the lessons we are sent here to learn?

In my dream, you wore only my old green corduroy shirt, loosely buttoned, the one I cut wood in sometimes, and sipped black coffee while leaning against the counter and though you neither needed or wanted me to fall to my knees, that was the interior impulse and I struggled against it and I still struggle.

And I think: how distant the stars are, how insistent their light.