Of Saints and Shadows

Oh these winter nights With their firefly skies Lying beside you I breathe in the waiting sun And the weathered willows Found deep in the valley We silently watch Dancing in our northern winds Visions of summer kissed days Fuel the blazing and charred cedar The sweet scent of wood Mingling with the scent of your skin I breathe deeply Your arms weave around my shoulders Caressing rose tipped flesh Drawing designs As if you were chasing warm currents through the trees Oh these winter nights With their firefly skies We sleep in the arms of lovers Under the watching eyes of the old oaks

This time when you call out I’ll have an answer Something more to tell you Dreams disappear and still you cry out The taste of flesh This time Like every time before And for all time She licks a line across the valley of your shoulders Tracing the contours of your body Memorizing the pathway back This will always be Where we should be In returning to all things, we are Natural This time we will look past What is said To everything unspoken

Yesterday I looked out across this foreign city Faces that hint at recognition And names that demand recollection But it’s not what I see Wishing instead, for the place I once called home Long ago and half a millennium away I remember your dark eyes Looking into my soul Watch it spark And reading my best kept secrets I remember the touch Your body against mine The memory its own warmth against my heart Long ago and half a millennium away Tomorrow I will make it back to you Escape the towering walls of this city For soft earth and warm waters Maybe then we can be in the same place for once

I will not embarrass myself Why did I feel I had to ask You were not the one to pose the questions Never take action We’d been afraid to leave Now the wind takes us where it wills Drift on currents We travel great and unknown distances Will we ever stop to wonder I know this is how it’s going to go The words spoken As they are framed in my mind You want from me And I give freely Because I want But I wonder at the end of all When was I supposed to take

He wants to scream and cry and hit Until he can feel what he has lost, Finally touch that memory that is just beyond his reach It’s been that way since you went away Stars disappear From the corner of your eyes To the places where you’re from And to all the places you said you’d go But don’t dare She wishes she could scream and shout and cry Knowing what she gave away, threw away But she doesn’t think back to yesterday, puts it just out of reach It’s been that way since she walked away Stars disappear From the corner of your eyes To the places where you’re from And to all the places you said you’d go But don’t dare Fast forward through the days You do what you need to, want to Holding onto dreams of me to make it through It’s been that way since you woke up today