Why We Will Never Say Hello Or Good-Bye
Why We Will Never Say Hello or Good-bye
By Ingrid Showalter Swift
Rake your fine fingers across my tender lips...
waiting with the hunger that years have made.
...Do you still hear me?
I am off in a land of daisies and flowers, of many colors.
I walk down sandy paths of pale soft skin... that I imagine
are yours
The water-butter beneath my finger tips
is your skin as well
and I look out across a far away horizon and know
you live there
breathing on, in unison with arms open to the sky
You beam as the sun... I weep as the waves.
I ache and bend and cry out in labor pain
There is no separation... but the heart still seems to seep
with it.
I can see your eyes
and in my eyes still dark and far away
...you drift quietly on a raft bobbing in a safe cove
The night still shifts to the wetted calm of us from time to time
and I know the trees and dogs can feel us moving
beneath the surface, like mermaids
Our tails are webbed jewels of gold and myrrh
Our fingers are intermingled... our cells combined...
Our torsos are sleek and clean
We separate... dip and dive like porpoises...
They know... I know they know... and hear our ever calls
and weep
and bow
and weep
and dive for us
in the still of twilight’s dancing diamonds
Why not? I cry... but know all too well the answers
Because there are flowers on our paths
and children playing in the skin of the sand
and we are one in our purpose
and one in the words and one as they fly over head - wing to wing...
As autumn climbs the hill to winter...
we will be in the flickering light of fire side
and the warmth of the soups that brew
and are handed one to the other
and we will ever be in the sawdust
and in the creation of anything new
and in time as it flows back and forth with the tide
Nothing can ever sever us from the ants
and the shells
and the mail that arrives in the mail box
Do you know that we are only a car ride away from forever?
Do you know that we are nothing more than one phone call apart?
...just seven numbers apart!
and it will remain the distance of forever because we know
how fine the sand feels between our toes
how smooth the wind blows over our wet torsos and white sails
and how water splashes into tiny beads of light at the bow
and how the tree grows
and how the stone feels from the inside
We will remain alone and surrounded by love
...because grass is green
God! How I love you!
Tell me again that you know... tell me... call me... tell me
...that it is real... that you can hear me
that I am the same as the child beneath your palm
loved ever, unconditionally
and you are proud of who I am and who I am becoming
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