On Loving Again
A cascade of purple smoke finds my broken heart in the
early morning. The promise of warmth propels me
on in the bitter cold of sad memories and broken
dreams. The ice is not even broken in the ditches.
The sunrise timidly peeks over the black hills, framed
in hope, cautiously eager to awaken the sleeping passions,
erase the hangovers of bitterness, dispel the sorrow of
ignorance and error.
I find my footsteps quickening though my hands and feet
are numb. I will see and hear the warm breath of com-
passion, the sweet sounds of life in the dead of morning, a
smoke signal of help in the frosty air.
I will deny that I can feel it though it is thawing out my
rejected soul, drawing it to the surface again, dismantling
the trappings of hibernation.
And so I come to this place, and the spring suns on a
thousand tundras would not feel as majestic; cancelling
winter, calling out courageous tendrils to reach for the sky.
The deepest purple gives way to gold and orange – and for a
moment, the past becomes a stranger cloaked in anonymity
skirting down a dim, back street.
I never thought that I would stand here again by design.
I do not want an opiate. I want to feel the pain – but not
forever.
Sometimes I am fearful that I will. Sometimes I feel that
I’ve felt enough for this life and the next. You answer my
knock and you know.
You know that rivers and canyons and mountains
and prairies and lakes and tall trees and pine forests and
gulches and deserts lie between us. You sense a feeling of
awe as I do that we can stand here face to face.
My mind is speeding down a water chute, a double
diamond downhill; behind a ski boat with all its centrifugal
forces.
You are steady, poised, expectant. Static prickles the air,
waiting for some interruption, some extraneous exposé of
our legerdemain: a phone ring, water dripping, a child’s
needs.
You answer before I can even ask a question and it
frankly scares me. It scares me to think I’ve been wrong
about myself or that you could be wrong and not know it.
Maybe I have just changed. Maybe I was never bad. I just
don’t know.
Your energy snaps me back while an incandescent bulb
beams an eidetic image that obscures your face momentarily.
You are holding me without hands. You are kissing me
without lips. You are guiding me inside you without
touching.
My mind reels like some rabbit chased by the beagles,
circling back toward the hunters again; like the approach-
avoidance emotions that well up in me when I hear the sound
of white water approaching.
The ferris wheel stops just forward from its zenith and
swings slightly back and forth, to and fro. Change and
chapstick roll out on the seat in which I’m placidly sus-
pended. The smell of cotton candy reaches up to me and
you bridge the gap.
from Did Someone Say Tomorrow by Mark Howard Bowles © Mark Howard Bowles