Rebirth

Years of loneliness and temporary friendships stretched out before me

Almost too much for one man to bear. 

Ache for a place of belonging.

Arms heavy with the memory of my children.

Ears hear my father's voice.

Cheek feels my mother's cheek against my own.

A thousand aromas woven from my auntie's kitchen and wrap around old hymns she knows so well.

Little arms wrap round my neck and messy faces kiss me

Uncle!  Mr. Shawn!  Daddy!

Look at me!

Play with me! 

Love me! 

A woman sits at my side

Our hips touch, our elbows bump, she smiles.

She has loved me so long - and will stand loyally at my side.

 

I feel these things as if they are real.

Fantasies flood me of the day I'll be with the ones I love so tenderly

When I will squeeze my son's shoulder in pride

Smell my daughter's hair at her embrace

Smile until my face aches

Talk until the sun rises and sets and rises again.

Slip into a quiet place with the woman who loves me, pledges her life

To me

Connect, connect, connect, mind and body and spirit and song

Before no one but the us who is within us.

Fly free as air bringing life to ones who inhale

Life ebbing out of me.

The daydream ends with a grind, a vinyl record screech

A tintinabulating sparkle of glass upon the floor.

I look up and see me here.

No children come to kiss me.

No woman's hip touches mine.

The smells are only fighting jet exhaust like sulfuric anger

Brought low from the sky

Military tents which never grow mold

Like rolling rocks which have no home

Trash piled dumpsters buzzing and wriggling with fly, bee, and maggot.

Filling my head with positivity

Stems the flow of despair leaking into my boat

Sinking me below the cold waters like a wilted lily pad

So lovely and fresh last spring

Forgotten and frozen and broken down to ever blackening muck

Stellar atoms no longer held together by lifelove's song.

In the spring the sun comes again

Stirs dormant life down below

Causing a reach beyond the inky water's bowel.

Spreading like spiderweb arms striving

For freedom, life, and possibility. 

Timid with the chilling touch of air and light

Having been so long beneath dirt, death, muck

Deafening, gurgling water.

Afraid at first to fully unfurl or let the majestic beauty within

Shine happily back at the sun.

Freedom then will be the power of restoration

The woman's hip will touch

The messy face will kiss

The and the joy of joy of joy will weave

Through harmonies' rhythm of the light which is the love

Of the beyond beyond the beyond

Within each one.