Elizabeth Myhr ---- poem

Alone I Look into You

alone I look into you because

you have the eyes that are my eyes and you have the wrists

that are my wrists that sullen bracelet we finger

I look into you because you alone know how

to play with the surface of the lake that is me

dabbling silent lightshifting music

you rise and teach me to rise and to fade

because you know that to fade is also to rise

and in my fading a long look into the mountains

you made them all didn’t you I bow to you I am

so small the slope of your body shelters our body

and you built the wild rhododendron

I would do anything for you

this love affair with death is itself a miracle

and then all night I run around making plans

but you wait laughing and when I walk out

I turn to see your face but of course there’s nothing but light

and when I fall asleep again and I fall asleep again

our separation hurts like a sword driven into a wall

but you are the sword and the wall and their separation

how can you sometimes fly off don’t you know there is

worship going on here

looking up I have to stop and stare being new to this I

must pretend I am an animal don’t all people

fall back into their animal bodies

and oh no there you are downwind the great cat waiting

your belly wet from the rain in the grass

go ahead snag me on your teeth I surrender my shaking heart

until all that’s left is blood on the leaves

no way in no way out

I’ve been trapped under ice and waiting for years

begging off in the wrong silence some kind of addict

please crack the string of ice at the creek edge

in one breath you can free everything

I might wake up confused but at least I’ll wake up

I beg you please

join me to the unbroken sand

I used to think I was alone

all those years in the shifting greenhouse

I thought I was unable to tell this story

but you never abandon anyone

not so recently the journey has

I cannot make words out of this tenderness

this beautiful descending music

rain in my half-open window