poesy.

Like is an important word
And although it is much abused
And greatly over-misused,
It would seem
That we simply cannot do without it.
Like has so many meanings
That it may appear to mean nothing–
Though that would be like saying
That because love is as slippery a word as a fish
It is therefore only whitewash
And vainly wishful thinking–
Just a dream of lifeboats, and vests,
And the strong, dry shore
On a ship that is slowly, inevitably, sinking.

Like is an important word,
Though not by itself;
Like only comes alive in times of company,
Or when comforting the bodiless anguish
Of bloodless, abstract things–
Like water gives voice
To the song the river sings.
It gives wings to words,
Like birds give life to the loud, lofty sky;
Like light gives shape to the clouds floating by.

Like is an important word,
For it is the bread we daily eat;
It is the couch on which we rest
–After a hard day–
Our aching, weary feet.
Like is in all the words we speak–
However weak and feeble they may sometimes be–
Without which we would see a world
Cold and colorless and still,
Like a prisoner in chains
Who has finally lost his will.

Like is an important word,
For it is absurd to think
That we can step the to the brink of our world
And gaze upon it directly–
Grasp truth in our hands
And squeeze it through our fingers
Like mud made from water and from dark sand,
Or draw the universe into our lungs
Like the smell of laundry
Hung, strung from the strong arms
Of pine-scented trees.
We need like like the air we breathe,
Like death deserves to be well-grieved.
We need it more
Than we need our feeble eyes;
For without the help of like
All human sight
Must slowly fade to blind.

These rolling green mountains hold
Memories–Ghosts
That still haunt these old hills,
Doomed to live the past eternally.
And these familiar winding, wooded roads through which I steer
Are filled with phantoms,
Indelible beings that desperately cling–
Like an unconscious fear of some yet unknown thing–
And only grow poignant with the passing of years.
I am moved by these
Memories–these ghosts–
Though to where, or to what,
I cannot well say;
It is not a sadness, nor even regret,
That brims up inside like a cold, sunless day–
But pity.
And the faint intimation
That time cannot heal the wounds of what was
Or smooth all the old scars of the past all away.

I clung like an ant to the tip of the world,
Breathless and dizzy; gasping and reeling–
The spinning sky over me carelessly staring–
The vertigo pulling up falling of feeling.
And my voice cried out through the crookedly canyons,
Carried faintly but far on the wings of the wind:
“I would we embrace, but I cannot now reach you–
For the ways are all bent, and I cannot get in.”
But an echo returned from the vastness, the chasm,
Whispered in tongues of the broken-in-heart:
“Not always so, my love; not always so–
When time is un-broken–O!–the distance shall part.”

It was only yesterday
That you lay screaming in that strange bed,
Sweat speckled above your lip like salty dew,
Stray strands of brown hair pasted to your pale forehead,
Begging me for help
Though I had none to give you.
For five hours the sun was eclipsed
And my sky turned a darker, blacker shade of blue.

Today, I drove with the windows down
and a bright blue sky arching overhead
To buy you a chocolate milkshake
(you were at home, feeding him in our bed).

When I was young
And smelled the first faint glow of fall
On the sultry, summer air,
It would fill me withal with a sadness and sorrow
That was almost just too great to bear.
Tonight, when that old, familiar tang of Autumn reached my heart
Some wild, sylvan excitement began to beat inside:
The coming of the cold like the coming of the long-expected bride.