there is fruit ripening on the vine
now against all odds, a rebirth
we have visited this field before,
strolled through its spring undulations
and been filled with the manna from above
we have dozed until breath of dawn
drunk on each other’s perfection
impossibility become reality become rapture
and we took our fate in our hands
began to sculpt, mold, create
but like the first couple we fell
drunk now with our own selves
lost, the magic – buried, our love
the lush valley withered –
and we parted
such exile, in a way, means more than death
for what can be worse than to live without love?
the greatest pearl burn to ash, we cast from ourselves
for we did not remember what we held
and time, time, time passed as it lay by the wayside
but in the night have come the rains
softening hard ground, bringing barest life
and somehow, beyond all hope, the ash becomes seed
the seed, wet with tears, begins to grow
and from the warming ground peeks the tiniest shoot
with warm attention, slow forgiving,
and a bit of unlooked-for grace,
this spring may ripen into fullness of summer
may find itself growing from the soil of truth
until the time of blossoms
when all the air awakens to life
saturated with the song of growth and preparation
then can come the fruit of labors past,
the gift of uncountable weaving forces
spun into the deep embrace of Time
with the loving hands of we who work
to purify our troubled minds
and sink our teeth into the earth
so never to lose the taste for life
this vision is my hope and my dream,
my guiding picture whose fulfillment
means the death of so much of me
yet death must occur where life is to begin in freedom
and such deaths, if made in sacrifice
are never vain or lost
so here I give my life, to its very last drop
into the newly wakened soil – now let us nourish each other