between the equinoxes and the solstices

I have been there, with you, dandelions in our hands

yellow noses and cheeks.

We have lounged together in supple long grass just as soft and squeaky

as can be under a newly returning sun.

There were mornings, so many of them,

when we gasped at the sweet young Urtica flashing

her toothy leaves at us. And we whipped each other in

Prayerful Urtication.

I have rolled out of a tall, warm canopy bed of the darkest mahogany

to step onto cherry wood floors and meander to a refrigerator of

Epic EPIC! proportions.

And I can hear the home in your voice now. I can hear the new, wet spring reflecting

off your pink tongue.

I know that brightness of the time of the violets.

it is what I know that envelops my heart when my thoughts hover over you.

I know what to do when you are sleepy and have had too much to drink

from my matching crystal glasses.

In the morning I know when you will wake and what you will do

and what to feed you.

This all floats on top of my new island like the

oil on my vinegar.

What I never knew, could not know, is how surfers appear in the waves

from a lofty balcony off my living room.

Or how blooming aloe appears in the fall. And I never dreamed of

how a Tui sings or sips. I fell in love with what an accent of soft vowels does

To our language. To celebrate northern hemisphere holidays in

southern hemisphere seasons and to learn rugby nuance, to see steam rise from a

City of sulphur. To see cabbages and ferns live as trees and

to dig a hot bath out of a misty black sand beach.....

This is why I left you. This is what I exchanged our

cozy love for. Can you ever forgive me?

Will you never stop haunting?