I would love to kiss you.
The price of kissing is your life.
Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,
What a bargain, let's buy it.
I'm crying, my tears tell me that much.
Last Spring, they say, the new green, how weak you felt.
Remember any night of all our nights,
but don't remember things I've said.
Late, by myself, in the boat of myself,
no light and no land anywhere,
cloudcover thick. I try to stay
just above the surface, yet I'm already under
and living within the ocean.
Friend, our closeness is this:
Anywhere you put your foot, feel me
in the firmness under you.
When I am with you, we stay up all night.
When you're not here, I can't go to sleep.
Praise God for these two insomnias!
And the difference between them.
For years, copying other people, I tried to know myself.
From within, I couldn't decide waht to do.
Unable to see, I heard my name being called.
Then I walked outside.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill.
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.
Does sunset sometimes look like the sun's coming up?
Do you know what a faithful love is like?
You're crying. You say you've burned yourself.
But can you think of anyone who's not
hazy with smoke?
We have ways within each other that will never be said by anyone.
You don't have "bad" days and "good" days.
You don't sometimes feel brilliant and sometimes dumb.
There's no studying, no scholarly thinking having to do with love,
but there is a great deal of plotting, and secret touching,
and nights you can't remember at all.
There's a strange frenzy in my head,
of birds flying,
each particle circulating on its own.
Is the one I love everywhere?
Come to the orchard in Spring.
There is light and wine, and sweethearts in the pomegranate flowers.
If you do not come, these do not matter.
If you do come, these do not matter.
The mystery does not get clearer by repeating the question,
nor is it bought with going to amazing places.
Until you've kept your eyes
and your wanting still for fifty years,
you don't begin to cross over from confusion.
The minute I'm disappointed, I feel encouraged.
When I'm ruined, I'm healed.
I drink streamwater and the air
becomes clearer and everything I do.
I become a waterwheel,
turning and tasting you, as long
as water moves.
In pain, I breathe easier.
The scared child is running from the house, screaming.
I hear the gentleness.
Under nine layers of illusion, whatever the light,
on the face of any object, in the ground itself,
I see your face.
During the day I was singing with you.
At night we slept in the same bed.
I wasn't conscious day or night.
I thought I knew who I was,
But I was you.
Drinking wine with you, getting warmer and warmer,
I think why not trade in this overcoat
made of leaves and dirt.
Then I look out the window.
For what? Both worlds are here.
Since we've seen each other, a game goes on.
Secretly I move, and you respond.
You're winning, you think it's funny.
But look up from the board now, look how
I've brought in furniture to this invisible place,
so we can live here.
The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.
We've given up making a living.
It's all this crazy love poetry now.
It's everywhere. Our eyes and our feelings
focus together, with our words.
At night we fall into each other with such grace.
When it's light, you throw me back
like you do your hair.
Your eyes now drunk with God,
mine with looking at you,
one drunkard takes care of another.
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