2002.1123.1115

autumn's bridge

the love you loved
when you first loved me
was the love i loved to see
t'was all the love i needed
but now today as you turn grey
i find the love you love me with
is something like an ancient myth
i heard but never heeded.

the love i love
now that my love for you has changed
is love so strange i feel deranged and
look upon my former range of love
and find it lacking.

the love we share is heavy air
and hardly where we dared to care
and though my mind is wracking
i feel my heart is cracking.

september love
indian summer suddenly snapped chill
leaving us wondering, blundering
hating at each other
looses bricks, loose words
blown warmly by august gusts
now slam our frostbitten toes
yanked by the gravity of age
youthful desire no longer supports
the love we love

i step unsteady and foot the swaying bridge
i turn about and eye my gleaming children
the kids are ready as the photoed fridge
my stomach churns, i bear them willing
into my maturity but you my bride
are yet a different wraith from whom i cannot hide
and can't be safe in prior comforts
and must attend without security
my back is what you wish to ride
i tremble and vomit over the ropey rail
and through my spit and spew the pit
of broken homes and death assaults
bodies like mine below for miles in mirrored motion
with gripping claws and working jaws
with envy and resignation.

why are we on this bridge alone?
who cares if we should fall?
what difference does it make if we
survive the winter squall?

is there another spring for us?
can love so twisted be?
the source of unknown joy again
the love i loved to see?

i will it so and wish in turn
without the fire of youth
that as we go new love we'll learn
and live in that great truth

yet of this love i nothing know
but name it as it was
and only trust as feelings flow
that save is what it does

for i am lost without a clue
gave every love i had to you
took every love you had to give
and wondered still if we should live

we wobble here on autumn's bridge
astride the chasm of divorce
i'll close my eyes and bear us forth
with faith alone my driving force
and if upon the crested ridge
ahead lies nothing but dispair
i'm satisfied my faith today
in what love could be got us there

my trust in you is faith in love
whomever you and love may be
i dream a blessed spring awaits
let's struggle on, and soon we'll see.