the clearing

to love clearly is to see clearly-or something like that. to love, clearly. claritas and caritas. the field that simply exists, unfenced. years of pruning and paring down, fruits that fall, or a labour of love? when all is said and done you're amazed to know how little you know, how much of it was like the sleep of a child. and yet, the dreamlife holds, is sharper, more real. and when we age, we sometimes know eachother blindly, as if a few footsteps in the snow were enough.

awakened from a dream, we are closer; your breath in mine, our souls truly alive only in darkness, quickened, frightened, out of their slumber. I catch a glimpse of you in the cold mirror and am startled. I remember your face, your forehead near mine, as if you were drawing me to your nature. my heart is clear now. there was really only you.

From Denise Levertov:

....

the mirror caught in its solitude
cannot believe you as I believe.
...

I like to find
what's not found
at once, but lies
within something of another nature
in repose, distinct.
...

Or, to believe it's there
within you
though the key's missing
makes it enough? As if
golden pollen were falling

onto your hair from dark trees.
...

all the while
you are indwelling,
a gold ring lost in the house.
...

not even a wise man
can say, do thus and thus, that presence
will be restored.
...

[without a shadow of a difference]

Sun.
light.
Light
light light light
....

A man growing old is going
down the dark stairs
He has been speaking of the Soul
tattooed with the Law
of dreams
burnt in the bone

Starladen Babylon
buzzes in his blood, an ancient
pulse. The rivers
run out of Eden.
Before Adam
Adam blazes.

"It's alright,"answers
the man going down,
"it's alright-- there are many
avenues, many corridors of the soul
that are dark also.
Shalom."