Trifles and Reticence

To disannul a single trifling word,
How many fervent lines must I compose?
A seed of love, in foolishness interred,
Would take a hundred thousand to disclose!
A pittance were a hundred thousand lines
If they could free this spirit’s eloquence;
A field of seed lies dormant and repines
Beneath the dryness of my reticence!
A hundred thousand lines were not enough
To coax each pious seedling into view,
But once we’ve gathered all the fruit thereof,
I know I’ll find another line or two.
(For that in which the shattered sunlight shines
Is surely she who streaks the sky with lines.)

I Am Corban

My plea may be to take me as I am,
But not because I cleave to mortal flaw;
My vices to expunge, my faults to damn,
I’ll venture forward when your waves withdraw.
I’ve feared your eyes—not shying from reproach,
But only the reflection I would find.
This ocean path is daunting to approach,
But only dearth and darkness lie behind.
Myself to kill, myself to recreate,
Myself to lose and gain where you reside:
I’ll brave your rift—myself to consecrate—
And smile upon you from the other side.
For loving eyes must dare to rise and see
The image of the man who ought to be.

Ex Nihilio

There is an answer in your smile,
but questions die like hydra heads--
or blooming things
that spill their seeds
when picked.

If I'm your light,
your world's too dark.

But how can I deny
that nothing shines like you
when all you see is me?

You know that I deny
the nonexistence of the gleam.

So there's an answer to your smile.

Humility and vanity
can blame each other all they want.
I only see one tide of life
in cutting hands that quake to hold.
I only know that shadows flee
when you make wonders of my wondering.