Uncontained within

To live engaged in
every half a phrase,
hinged as light felled softly
from tree limbs.

Please tell me
that you know the reach
the power of your voice,
a voice that in my mind
cries far, and wide achieves
the white and reds on canvas
that I paint.

I know you know it is for me
a gift, the kindest gesture of a single spring,
and it has deeply set
in the most guarded place within my chest;
the paint absorbed completely by linen trays
and, it is peerless now, it runs now
uncontained within,
beguiling every limb and cloth with glee.

I know you know that it’s at times,
the stillness borrowed
in the midnight of a day
that covets all in shadows, but barely knows
to touch the spirit of your lips
it’s watercolor in the daytime’s glare.

I know you know me just awake at night,
pondering borrowed promises of wisdom born
on leaves, dressed in the shiver and warmth
of everyday, a day that brings
the thought to want, to see
and breathe you whole
entirely from within and paint in ink.

Please take this, what is, a half of a half phrase
carried in the thought you left with me
to see me through the next day and the next
and now dares, without regard, to speak,
to breathe and think for me:
forever is a wait for ever after spring and still,
I would wait more than time to bring
the light and rustle of the leaves under your feet,
to see the garden turn and seep
in orange blossoms rich
while strings of half
of half a phrase draw closer every breath
you make me paint.

And I breathe that whole breath
I stole from you onto the linen clean
as kindness from your daring opened eyes,
while mine fall gently
on the wholesome phrases of
a love eternally unhinged,
sublime and free in paint not ink,
not yet in ink.


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