Finding Leaves

         "Naked but safe, 2010"

Finding Leaves

I have found your mad ravings beautiful. The frantic

Running towards nothing and naming it

Love. The first leaf fell and I wish I could apologize

For its failure to hold on as the days grew cooler.

There was a time when I could think of little else, just the simple

Rebukes of lost letters and moments that time loosened. 

These have brought autumn quickly. 

A blackbird fell on the street today. I did not wake to see it, but I knew it 

was there. A time piece, an ancient bleeding, a solid ring of missing pieces.

I threw it a flower and slipped on my coat. 

We walk to recognize the movement, we kiss to recognize living. The cling

Of bodies or hands. 

I would like to join a cloudy day in winter, moving

Ever so slowly in the weathers uncertainty, unnoticed

In my drifting suit of smoke. I would hold the bird

Dressed in black, never letting her plummet. It is in the darkness of day that I remember

You, and I long to be a simple object

In your home, that I may always be near. 

In the lightness of evening I am just myself. Not alone,

But on the metro with a sandwich and you, headed 

Out to watch the clouds in a park on the industrial side of town.

A funny thing, there in in the center of factories, a patch of grass

Guarded by iron

Machines, a slope and a bench. It is just like the one we found

So many years ago. A space

Enough for two bodies. 

You would be a silly old man, and I a silly old woman. 

We never did anything spectacular, I never changed

The world like I said I would, but in the squeeze of your hand id remember

That it is rare for one to notice the movement 

Of clouds.