"I Stand Where The Windows Are Empty"
and Other Poems

I Stand Where The Windows Are Empty

I stand where the windows are empty
from my reflex and in the growing
twilight of the evening I stare
into the happy alley
and listen to the hush
where no bird's song breaks
the gloom of the moment
but mine

and I think of you
- connected to me
womb to womb -
and I await your arrival
with a lamp that now
grows oh so dim.

For I know for the truth
in this sacred moment,
when we shall talk once more,
face to face,
that the door to the cage
is at last open
and together we shall watch
the final gathering of the birds
when they take flight
at the end of our days.

Yes, my cut heart shall sing
but it will be the bitter tears
where one realizes the true
meaning of exile is to be
left all alone.

For I know for the truth
in this sacred moment
what the poet truly meant
when her sad voice sang

this bird is mortal

---

The Bitter Fact

This morning there was a fly
in the bedroom. We never have
flies in this house. I think it was
you trying to wake me
from my early morning sleep.

You never wanted us to sleep
late but now your grandchild makes
sure that I am awake at five
every morning. I am becoming you,
the one thing I never wanted to be.

You lost your mother
when you were 30
and I was 20 months old.
Now you did it to me
- I am your age
and my daughter is mine.

There is never a good time to lose a parent
but I guess someone had to die yesterday
and I guess someone had to experience
this sad story and it had to be me.

The bitter fact that I will never see
you again and will never fight, argue,
laugh and cry with you is a crossroads
where I have neither the map
nor the key for when I arrive home.

---

Last Hand Clapping

And so down comes the curtain
upon another year and I sit
here in the dark and the cold
listening to the sound echo
hollow in my soul.

The tears have burnt in fire
across the sky of imagination
and the images have been reduced
to silence as I watch from the shore
along Sea of Despair where the tribes
wander through the years of exile.

I am no closer to salvation than I was
the first day our verses twined as one
and I am no further from damnation
than when I read her letter and remembered
the path I had chosen oh so long ago.

If there is a sound in my heart,
if there is one last song for me to sing
before I shut the flame from the lantern of desire
and walk the lonely paths of acceptance

it is a sound so far distant
from my pursed lips,
from the lonely sea,
of the last hand clapping

before the night returns
to encase all hope
in the bliss of forgetfulness.