"Love cannot be said"
Jelaluddin Rumi
Speak to me and your words
will adorn me;
I will apply them, ceremoniously,
like tribal scars,
but great minds speak
without words
as you have spoken to me
since the day I learned
your language in
my arms.
Transcribing it now,
I scroll back the winters
when trees were smoke
the shape of softer days,
when one night crushed the
rebellious day with
beginning.
A ring marked the moment
that separated my one self
from the other--one world
where I walked with a shadow,
the other where I walked
with two--
the thin gold line,
also a chasm I never hope
to cross.
And then when you were
called to the sea--the cruelest
chasm--you ran off with all
my best dreams,
the ones that glowed like
Autumn's cathedral,
the ones that convinced me
I could fly--
taken to the other side
of the world.
On those days,
slow as needlepoint,
your absence crowding me
like fear,
I took you into each frail
morning, and you trailed me
like the last note of a
symphony perfuming the air.
You returned and left and returned
while youth,
that blizzard of splendid stupidity,
thawed a little every day,
and I found you again
after the crows of pride
had been shot one by one
and all that was left was
this hope to nurture.
When life was a riddle
the rabid world couldn't
untangle,
you figured it out,
you gave me the answer:
it was in everything you do.
You illuminated me with
your countless acts
of kindness
then stood back and
watched me shine.
And you never realized
that the gold I reflected
was all the love you
gave to me.
And I believe it was in
that starry shower
when I discovered I
couldn't have it all--
just everything that mattered.
How do you outshine
someone who created your light?
How do you improve a script
that began with the
ranting wind of dreams
and ended with everything?
I could say you are
my memories
and the scattered saffron
of each new day
or the space where I
begin and end,
but it would never
match your language.
I can only ask you to
keep on speaking.
Perfect this life.
Stay till it is over.
Patricia Joan Jones
To read more of my work go to: My Poetry List