What I need from you
Is to trust the infinite goodness of the present
And leave unwrapped the grudges of the past
To begin anew the lodgings in your dwellings
And leave forever rooms where kindness cannot last.
In your houses are many mansions of belonging
I need you to find
Fresh furniture that serves your soul's nobility
And ceases to support your behaving like an ass.
In each woman and man is the potential for greatness
To stretch consciousness
To what is just within grasp
In every human being
There is a place of darkness and shadow
Waiting for wholeness and completion
Where the light is brightest and you stand in its way
What I need from you is what I need from myself
To cease giving my power to mere shadows.
I could not sleep last night at all
I could not tear myself from my weary battle
Of darkness and of light.
What you need from me is to remember
My love has not diminished
Even though you've not heard my voice or my laughter.
What you need from me is to feel my arms about you
Even though I can't hold you too tight.
Where truly do I dwell?
Is it in this fallow body that aches and moans,
That falls and rises again?
What I need from you,
You have already given me,
To hear the fare-thee-well of your love, to know
The heaven of your sweet hello.
It's true, about me are the ruins of despair
But they ring not true
And their lands have never long remained
What I need from you
In kindness you have given already
And in memory I will take to the grave.
The sun is streaming, the day bright with promise,
And all the lies that have ever been told
Cannot diminish this moment's rapture.
What I need from you lasts longer than
These structures of your success or my departure.
Go then
And seize not the day,
But hold it in the most tender embrace
What I need from you goes far beyond this moment
Or this poem, written on the wings of a restless night.
It asks you to remember a far loftier potential
Than projects or incompleted tasks you've yet to make right.
And in your gaze that looks within
I need only to remind you
To love your soul's eternal child inside yourself
And with insight behold your immortal face.