~

before i open the door i hear your voice   singing  

no   on the phone  

speaking words so foreign 

that i cannot guess even their intent

not a glance my way

listening to you   words and images that have no meaning

come to me   prague spring   velvet revolution

i know enough

to know that isn't your world

born too late for that   but in its stead   what   

a world you left behind  

and is it that world   perhaps your grandmother's world  

to which you speak   now   phone call over  

you come to me  

take my hand   press it to your warm cheek   

~

which of us has the dark soul after all

are we beginning to see

past your bent for turning away   and mine for turning toward

to something shared   it was fire and ice

when you touched my cheek

maybe   just maybe   what i see in you   and you in me

is what we don't say   but recognize

what we'd rather not say

though i'm thinking it doesn't matter

you touched me as no one has  

though i've said that before     

and if you turn away   i'll know why  

and follow you   my shadow 

in step   behind yours   perhaps   but near enough

~

We drive up to the wine country so that I might introduce Marketa to Colin's grandfather.

It is cold and gray, a bit hard to see the charm. The vineyard, now harvested, and the old stone of the winery walls are bleak, sending us quickly indoors. Colin's grandfather has a fire going, the massive stone fireplace burning away the chill we carry in. 

I used to think Colin's grandfather gruff. He was. The new generation of wealthy vintners who buy land, buy help, buy knowledge, buy their way into the industry without a hint of sweat labor would make anyone gruff.

He skips his rough voice with Marketa. His manner is gentlemanly. I sense a little something passing between the two of them—recognition?

I show Marketa our room, the room that kept me safe and at peace this summer. 

It is late afternoon, not much daylight left. Despite the damp chill we walk along a path that leads west through the vines toward the hills beyond, the hills dotted with live oaks. We come to a little trestle bridge built over a creek, now dry, and stop mid-bridge.

We've said so little to one another over the past few weeks, relying on instinct or intuition. Now we talk, we talk for a long time, until we are chilled through, and if not all is revealed between us, much is. 

~

we come in from our walk   maybe in love

the house is warm

from the fire in the grand fireplace

the surrounding stonework radiating warmth

reminding me of a bakery

when you first walk through the door on a cold day

we put our damp coats and shoes by the fire

colin's grandfather offers a glass of wine or whiskey 

you take wine   i take the amber whiskey

though whiskey is a man's drink   or so i think  

it warms   and if the warmth of the room reminds me of a bakery  

this inner warmth reminds me of smokey campfires

from long ago trips i took with my father

and now you   i am associating this warmth with you 

~

i should have   but i never saw this coming

not while bathing in the warmth

of your radiance   your being   your blessing

seen what coming   what indeed but a retrenchment

of angst left behind in disgust   it comes

sniveling back   uriah heap   hands soaplessly sudsing themselves

a dark little insidious presence   and i turn  

my eyes showing despair   and cry   help   wordessly  

you've seen so much worse   but i am within reach   so you reach 

my heart pounding    a feeling i thought i'd left behind    

a neurochemical shift

rending in a moment what tooks years to mend

you reach   touch   pull me to you   saying   it's alright   wordlessly

which is what i choose to hear   and before long   it is

~

i drive to point reyes   alone

while you work

the beach air bitingly cold and drizzly

so cold it hurts

picking up two gray stones

darker than the sky

worn smooth   bringing them home

one for each of us

i don't like this this   being alone   not anymore

this melanhcholy feeling  

i thought i'd left it behind when you came  

but no   it comes  

i think it is taking me a little while to believe

in us

~

The colors are somber, this time of year, even here. Damp fog all too often hides the sun. I'm moving indoors, physically, psychically. 

~

how nice   taking the laundry   warm and clean

in my arms

setting the bundle upon the kitchen table

smoothing and folding   yours and mine  

what could be more intimate

i think of you   of us   each article of clothing

representing a moment in our lives   often shared moments

softly in my hands

moments to be folded   now folded 

to be put away for moments to come

to think

my hands upon you as they are now upon your clothes

always with you   sharing

always sharing

~

Dreams are dreams, without portent, a playing out of anxieties and sometimes wishes. This dream is nothing, but it's on my mind. I want to write about it, get it out in the open, let it decant.

It is about you, of course, distant, physically distant. Whatever electrons normally connect us fail. We are drifting apart. Time passes, a year maybe—how does one tell time in a dream? Too long. 

This seems wrong, but dreams are like that. 

Time passes, I'm cycling thoughts in this dream, I can't get anywhere, you are gone, I can't find you, but I see you as if you're on a ship, standing at the stern and I'm on the pier, you're disappearing. You're not waving.

That I'm disconcerted today makes sense. But here you are, not far away at all. Within reach. 

Marketa, in my mind you were gone, gone for a long time. I was at a loss, bereft, puzzled, alone. To say a part of me was missing would be true, the part of me that thinks of us as one, even if it is early days.

Writing helps less than I thought it might. You were a ghost to me, intangible. It will take a while for this to dispel. 

When I woke and reached, and you were there, I smiled. But a year is a long time, and I missed you. I've been missing you for a long, long time. 

~

what happened to the dolphins

life was a lark

what changed   oh yeah   terri found greener pastures

as i wrote in white bird   it isn't in my nature

to live a larkish life

i'll have to be careful   marketa

especially with the dark days of winter upon us

here's a start  

every article of black clothing goes

it may be superficial   it may not be

i'm going to run and dance  

make love as often as you desire   paint rainbows

so i say   and i quote sendak   

let the wild rumpus start

~

you play the ballad of all the sad young men

for me on youtube

radka toneff   her voice coming from the grave 

everything you do   gorgeous girl   even this 

undoes me

only a month ago i thought you cold and heartless

now your smile means everything to me

your sidelong glances

say what words can only fail to say

you leave me weak in the knees  

and i have to apologize

to professor eliot for resorting to a cliché

it is grey and cold and wet   i couldn't be happier   marketa

how i love to write that word   marketa

~

not for the first time i wonder about love

were lisa

janet   pam   ellen   debbie  

julie   louis   becky   andrea   jane   robin   annie   gail   terri

training wheels for you

can i take them off   have i learned to ride   have i learned anything

take it too slowly on a bicyle and oops-a-daisy

go too fast one ends up in heap   at least i do   c'est la vie   c'est la guerre

besides   you are too smart   too practical

to fall in love   you will know the difference

between passion and whatever it is that love pretends to be

you will brook no such nonsense from me  

should i veer in that direction   as i am wont to do      

but maybe not this time   maybe i'm asking the right questions

~

Until something happens, we get married, we fall apart, uncertainty will do its work on me. You are everything to me, but those are words. What is the reality?

I'm too young not to believe in love. I want to. But there have been too many false starts, false hopes. Every time I believe, and every time I'm wrong. Yet, if I'm honest, I knew, every time, it was something else. The word love came easily to me, rolled off my tongue effortlessly. I was happy, it felt good, it might have felt true. But it was something else. After all, if it were true we, all the others, would still . . . be.

Only you Marketa, after all, remain.

Maybe this isn't the time in our lives to commit, to make the big decisions. Maybe it isn't. But maybe it is time to say this is it, and even if nothing comes of it, this is it. I've had my larks. I'll say it, and you can think about it. This is it.

I think of my parents, they said it. At some point you get on with it, you commit, for better or for worse. Do the stars really have to align, or it is something more pragmatic? You want to dig in, leave the I'm so in love behind, close the curtain on the dramatic bits, begin living in the present, and work toward a future, together.

Everything is not going to work out, be perfect, all the time. I know that. Loneliness won't cease because you are by me. I'm still me. But I'm ready. I will take every lesson, every false start, and say no, not this time. I can do this.

~

So passes a year.

~

marcy  pregnant   opens the door

i notice   immediately

she isn't wearing her wedding ring 

then laugh at my moment's doubt   that belly

and those swollen hands

being evidence that a gold's circle of love may be love's symbol  

but the physiology of maternity has no consideration

for symbolism   and we hug  

my how things have changed over the past year

colin welcomes us   hugs marketa   then me

i would like to think our hug lingers one heartbeat longer

it is my perogative   then settle in with glasses of wine   not marcy of coure

all the pieces are now in place   this is it   if this is a lark  

it's a new kind of lark   the nesting kind   and i find myself smiling

~