For Sarah
My eyes open to a world that obliges my senses
To bear the weight of years I have never experienced.
My waking mind perceives what is and what could be,
Yet has so much difficulty defining the difference.
Then there you are, blurring those lines,
Convoluting my world of whites and shadows
With a whirl of color and a hum of song
That infiltrates, encompasses, envelops, and passes through me,
Seeing me as I am, knowing my own colors and songs,
Embellishing what grace can be derived there,
And giving it a canvass in which to thrive,
And a heart to fill.
You are the gravest danger and the the most secure sanctuary,
Breaking down my walls even as you take away
The reasons for them to exist.
You allow me the ability to appreciate silence;
The ceaseless turmoil of my breaking mind given a reprieve
While I remain aware of your existence.
In these troubled times of hate and death,
I am humbled and weakened, poisoned and adrift.
Yet the warmth and rhythm of your beating, aching heart
Is the anchor that steadies my tossing vessel
And like the knowing embrace of Mother Earth,
My feet are given a place to stand where they cannot fall:
You have given me an entire world.
I have never been afraid of death until my first born saw her first daylight.
You both exacerbate this fear, and nullify it;
What is more final than an end? And yet,
How could an end exist at all?
I look up at what few stars penetrate this urban prison
As if answers were etched into the indigo weaving for my benefit,
And I am reminded that I am nothing,
A minuscule, inconsequential particle amid a greater grandness
Too large for my tiny mind to fathom,
And I begin to think about the insignificance of the world around me.
Yet there is beauty that I admire and treasure, and I am aware
Of its absence from my life.
I take for granted the passing of the seasons,
The call of infant birds crying for food in their nests,
The wind blowing through a flowering field,
The dancing of golden leaves on an autumn tree,
The chattering of streams rushing away to the sky.
All of it insignificant, just like you, just like me.
Yet your heart feels more real to me, your love more beautiful,
Than the natural world around us that is far older than we,
Far less significant and infinitely more useful.
But when the feeling of hopelessness and nothingness surrounds me,
My mind wanders to times we have had,
Hands held, destinations traveled, tears, laughter, pain,
And I am content to be insignificant with you
Beneath the grandeur, below the greatness
In a place where we belong,
Where we have meaning,
Where we have love.
