With all my heart

with all my heart
i wish

to sing you a song to make you smile
to hold you safe in my arms a while
to dance with you resting upon my shoulder
to dream of days when you will grow older
to laugh with you as I caress you awake
to cry with you should your heart break
to feel you again beneath my skin
to nestle you close under my chin
to watch you thrive in our house of mirth
to wrap you in cotton instead of earth

My darling boy, my angel, my own
with all my heart
i want you home.

Aloof - by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

THE irresponsive silence of the land,
   The irresponsive sounding of the sea,
   Speak both one message of one sense to me:--
Aloof, aloof, we stand aloof, so stand
Thou too aloof, bound with the flawless band
   Of inner solitude; we bind not thee;
   But who from thy self-chain shall set thee free?

What heart shall touch thy heart?
What hand thy hand?
And I am sometimes proud and sometimes meek,
   And sometimes I remember days of old
When fellowship seem'd not so far to seek,
   And all the world and I seem'd much less cold,
   And at the rainbow's foot lay surely gold,
And hope felt strong, and life itself not weak.

I dreamed - For F. J. J.

I dreamed I held you.
And not just waking, whimsical daydreams
of light and innocence.

But in the fullness of night when visceral passions
Infuse every muscle with knowing.
I held you.

I reached through my skin.
Held you warm, and earthy in my arms.
Minute perfection, blazing and pulsing with life
Vital and healthy and whole.
Enveloped in the divinely crafted,
Interwoven nest of my hands.

Once, I dreamed I handed you to your father,
Whose brow is your largest mirror,
Whose heart is likewise etched
With the knowledge of your being.

Your existence is not for scientific speculation.
Nor a weapon in spiritual revolution or political debate. It is fact.
True as the existence of all the heavenly bodies.

The stars, of which you are made,
Are not merely theoretical
For humanity's frail inability to touch them.

For F. J. J.

Jennifer D. Behnke - June 7, 2014 - 4:35am

Clouds - by Denise Levertov

The clouds as I see them, rising
urgently, roseate in the
mounting of somber power

surging in evening haste over
roofs and hermetic
grim walls—

Last night
As if death had lit a pale light
in your flesh, your flesh
was cold to my touch, or not cold
but cool, cooling, as if the last traces
of warmth were still fading in you.
My thigh burned in cold fear where
yours touched it.

But I forced to mind my vision of a sky
close and enclosed, unlike the space in which these clouds move—
a sky of gray mist it appeared—
and how looking intently at it we saw
its gray was not gray but a milky white
in which radiant traces of opal greens,
fiery blues, gleamed, faded, gleamed again,
and how only then, seeing the color in the gray,
a field sprang into sight, extending
between where we stood and the horizon,

a field of freshest deep spring grass
starred with dandelions,
green and gold
gold and green alternating in closewoven
chords, madrigal field.

Is death’s chill that visited our bed
other than what it seemed, is it
a gray to be watched keenly?

Wiping my glasses and leaning westward,
clearing my mind of the day’s mist and leaning
into myself to see
the colors of truth

I watch the clouds as I see them
in pomp advancing, pursuing
the fallen sun.