5-27-17

the days are lengthening stretching out like water
fallen into the sea or like the way lovers seem to elongate
after sex reaching for something the heart was dreaming of. 

the sun seems happy on its high trapeze. the birds fill up
the rooms of the day with their xylophones and flutes. 
I used to imagine that I’d be married young, before solstice

or if killed first would rise from the dead with the last tulip. 
as it’s turned out I’m still lonely and not killed, proving
one theory wrong and not yet the other but and 

despite the sky seems no less my friend and it blesses me
with the deep blue light that the saints say waits beyond 
all forms of darkness. I have no proof of that either

but set forth on the long migration on the longest days
when my legs will carry me furthest.
if, as they say, it’s all about the journey then I will have made

my share of tracks, and the heart, little red timepiece I schlep along
will keep telling me, "fear not--it is long, but not far."

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