Return to blessing

I wonder what I saw
in your eyes

I mean I saw the kind of
greenish brown
people call hazel
and when I looked more closely
I thought I detected some yellow

was it perhaps concern
or maybe anger
but you're too gentle for that
so it was probably annoyance
or frustration
at how thick as a brick

I must have seemed
when you were telling me sense
and I was still wondering
what you were teaching me
as if I really had to work
for the meaning
you had arranged on a plate
before me

it wasn't that I was
putting on the dog
of feigned disbelief
of little betrayals
of bright hopes dashed to blue smoke and smithereens

enchantment can be that way

just for a moment
I fancied I caught
in your eye
a wisp of magic
the silver mist of a missing mirror

unconsulted but sill serviceable
between its black cracks
was it myself I saw
or was it just my imagination
playing tricks
with my longing

if I lingered any longer
I would have been staring
so I demured
and averted my eyes
and temporarily rested my enquiries
to give you time to recover
and return to blessing
which is your gift

if I dared even to think your name
and whether it had anything to do
with a song that was playing
on the radio
or in your parents' heads
when you showed signs
of being ready
to take your first kick
at that great match of perpetual choosing and taking a chance
at which we all get a shot
at greeting the moment
as if you'd never have your last

now after taking a breath
I see the spark has returned
as you light another fire
and raise another glance
and quiz your next guest
about his origins or his dance

I stole a kiss
in that moment
not fearlessly from your lips
or eyelash
or fecklessly from the back
of your hand
but furtively from your eyes
and your glance

 

and there I saw you at last
no more lovable than I
no less loved
than your Day Two pants
or your go to earrings
or your to and fro flats

but that's
you at last
no less than in the lines I trace
with my eyes
or those you trace
with the grip of your fingers
or the shape you make
with the grasp of your hand

or in the shadows you cast
on all that is too peripheral to be captured
or paraded past
the palace of remembrance
of purposes dispatched
of promises pledged
of play dissipated
in the scent of the storm
great Glamis

perspicacious petrichor
earthy at first

and then green as grass
welcoming geosmin
quivering to quench

the beasts of the prairie field

I don't think I ever looked through a glass darkly
but every boy has watched hockey
through scratched plastic
knurled Perspex

or has his face pressed against the boards

and what of meandering streams

or Comely Banks

or mixed stands of larch and ash

also known as tamarack
or whirling white pine

or Douglas fir

sadly prized for its planks
and buttonwood

and all that that entails

now imagine
if you will
the leaf

of the branching oak

with arms like tree trunks
scooping up tired travelers
who come hand over hand

and toe on top of foot

taking comfort
cheek to cheek
against the cool and beckoning bark

better to stop and hold
than to let hands go
when you have the legs of Ganesha

or the lips of Shiva

imagine
once again
the thinnest leaf of the oak
quercus alba

that makes brine pickles crispy

when you don't have black currant
(not forgetting the garlic)

or the salt

that

paradoxically

makes the ferment sweet

then think of Rumpelstiltskin
whispering the alchemy
that turns straw into gold

then remember
being ahead by a century

then renounce the smoke

of false bravado

when you hope

not for what may be

or could be

or should be

or would be

if

God were in his heaven

and the world were right

but hope for what is

and can be

if you listen

to the thoughts in your head

or the magic

in the mind of a frog

eyes wide
perhaps surprise
never fear
for no pseudopodian dominion
was ever built
on the feet of any such clay
the way Nebuchadnezzar paid

nor am I asking you
to tilt at windmills

like some latter day Quixote
or whistle while you work

or make like you've lost your best friend
such is the progress of cat's feet on the hardwood floor
and of the bend of the arc

between first dance and last chance
side stepping like Clare Quilty with Vivian Darkbloom

or dancing me outside
like a Prometer or a Bleeker

or really taking a chance

approaching neither full on nor crabwise

rather ambling confident and tall

and letting yourself fall
on the fag end of a failed romance.