A Phoenix Sings: February 2015

Friday, February 27, 2015

We laughing

Thought it a game

Surviving the flames

still breathing

I took your name

Home we created

and tending

the babes we were fated

Darkness not abated

and searching

You never satiated.

The road has been hard

with mourning

better, worse, scarred.

Laughter is mute, marred

in anger

you're always barred

Naked without shame

I daring

Now stake my claim

Can you do the same

finally

naked without shame?

Jennifer D. Behnke - February 26, 2015

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,

or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms

but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,

risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

so I love you because I know no other way than this:

where I does not exist, nor you,

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land

And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.