Nothing and All

I have seen you in the black night of my morning’s cup
Caught the fragrance of your smile in its rising breath
Heard your voice in the crashing rain against the roof and ground
The way the sound covers everything, roaring about me in my little cave
Hidden there I feel the shelter of your skin
Knowing nothing and all is safe.

You are that cave, that rain, within and without
You consume all my visions and tiny toy days
All my thoughts and appetites diverge to you.

You are those thoughts, that hunger and thirst.

I found you in the rough edges, in the smooth places
Where the caterpillar drags its many feet
Drudging the hill and valley of petals and leaves
You are the wanderer, you are the feast.

I saw you in the fields as they grew
Watched them as I watched you
Chartering the ins and outs of days
Led by the morning star, eyes fixed on its light

My chest puffed up with some strange pride,
In the quiet of those mornings where I met you,
Rushing by, I thought I heard you whisper
You stood tall among the wheat there
Calling out to me by name

The day of harvest came and I wept,
These fields where I met you now ripped open and laid bare
Like someone blind had come to cut the lion’s mane
And in the heat of the summer made haste

But I found you in the barren fields,
The messy shorn of their brown and gold
I felt you in my weeping turned knowing
Like the warmth of the sun in its rising first light
Come to shake the calm and cool of the eastern sky.

My heart and soul devoured by the piercing sound of your stare
When the violin sings or the morning birds cry
I can feel your heart beating in the turning of the earth

When lightning dances, caged among the tangled evening clouds
Strewn about the heavens for those who mind to look or dare to stop and be
Them that, either in the bravery or foolishness of their hearts,
Uttered that they might have ears to hear and eyes to see.

You are in the fabric of pillows, the dust that clings to windows
The parallels of universes, the expanse of time and space.
You are the glimmer in the wondering child’s eyes
And the last breath that escapes a man before he dies
Nothing and all is sacred, nothing and all is safe.