By a Stream in Wales
Jim January 23rd, 2010
My love and I walk by the singing brook
That cuts across the corner of the land
And vanishes beneath a gravel bed
To reappear a quarter mile on.
The poet in me can’t allow that I
Discuss the aquifer below the soil
Or douse the beauty of the crystal waters
With terms of scientific measurement.
She walks in sorrow thirsting for a word;
One word of mine to tell her all my heart,
But I would have her know the thing outright.
“My love,” I say, “is like this dancing stream
That runs in hunger to the waiting sea
And dives below the soil out of sight.
So passion comes and goes within my heart;
So fickle man his love to woman gives.
The flood that rages through his veins one day
Will sink beneath the silent earth the next.
Do not despair, but know the words you need
Will spring, unbidden, forth from me–to you
That moment when you do not seek the spring
To bubble out in joyous laughter to
The surface. Passion leaps and dives, but love,
Like water flowing to the calling sea
Increases as it dashes to the waves.
So I increase the while I flow to you,
In silence or with heartdeep longing wracked,
Above, beneath, until I join your sea.”
She says no word, but kneels down to drink
The liquid diamonds running off her chin
And leaping from her cupped, creased hand
She turns and offers me her heart-washed touch
And I accept, my heart that moment rinsed
By droplet covered fingers on my face.