Awakening in progress

Soul shake
suddenly I'm awake
after never really knowing.
An eternity of days.
This feeling electrifies
until the trees are all on fire,
pink sky glowing
in my eyes.

I can sense the change.
My body rocks and breaks and
I am built up again.

Your hand parts the clouds and rests
softly on my rising chest.
Fingers spread, my pupils round to daylight.
They drink in truth in tones of green
and blue and white.
Golden rays through gently parted morning blinds
your soft skin on mine.

And your words
make me shiver,
your warm breath on my neck
whispering lines to songs still
only half-written.

And in my mind I make wishes
on feathered seeds floating on the wind.
I send them off
with prayers that I don't yet dare speak aloud.

The wind tumbles over orchard branches that
whisper and sigh
into my burning ears
promises of a life untethered and pure.

I see the world and myself as one reflected in the garden of your eyes.

Three in the country

Spring sounds across the fields
and sunlit patches of ancient mountain ridge
in humming drones
and trilling, twittering harmonies.

Wood slats creek under urban feet
suddenly so distant
from daily cares; chores
and burdens,
bound up and thrown out the window
to bounce along the highway as metallic blurs buzzed by
at breakneck speeds.

We, murmured to stereo sounds
and speculated about life
and love. Thoughts
lingered on moments.
And the road, turned to gravel, wound
under canopies of freshly budded branches.
The shadow and sun danced
across our windshield,
afternoon distractions that we welcomed.

And here.
Here, the air passes through hair and over
skin, too pale from winter days.

Green silence is
broken
as evening creeps
over the tree-lined peaks and songs
celebrating the ecstasy of nothing in particular
sound from the breasts of one hundred
birds.

Sitting in reverent silence at our table,
as coals smolder at our side,
each of us knows instinctively
that we all share the same thought:
how did it take us so long to be here?