movement through the leaves –

God will grant me this time
after the magnolias have died beneath the bell-tower,
to walk the shadows of the Quad,
listening for the sibilance of June's arriving.
These walks have drummed a solitude around my open soul,
like lessons in the classrooms,
like dreams that recur.
The world, life,
finds ways to touch you,
new ways of wounding when you think
you are deserved
of this stillness from bird-wings
this absence of light.
To walk these wide paths,
to move below the arched windows,
and Ionic columns,
there are echoes of Dendur in the Metropolitan mid-day,
wrappings of Wendy's laughter as she tilted over my note,
and I paid for this and these
in separation.


Wrought iron lamps rising from cold stone,
cold stone arched above gorges,
where students have ended their lives in long spirals,
where foam and full moons
welcomed Courtney and Cecil and I,
stroking across the slate.
Past. Past like the devolution of ice.
Now the greens are layered, pressed
upon and leafed, black with
scales and glimmers - lush rustlings of a new wind.
I can smell the moisture,
taste it in my bare feet, and my underarms.
In this silence I can say anything,
so I breathe, just.

I walk naked on a plot,
bounded by hovering rooms where I learned the stories
I tell myself, and live others.


There is no tempo of similarity to the caroling of birds,
and echo of welcome,
announcing the Eden coming
in the blue behind Sage Chapel, the sloping of roof and dawn.
Here, place, so very much laughter
with Matthew,
the humming of sun on Karen's pale Irish skin.
All of this, from aerate pressures on my nudity
bird-voices layering like the intensity of leaves on my eyes,
moisture calling my skin,
calling like oceans in the trees,
washing the sky before the light,
warning of betrayal of the loss.


Airié has told me
people see me as strong,
but that the world wounds certain people,
wounds them a lot.
Does she know that these people
have taught,
that this place has loved,
that this final dawn,
spoken in the language least studied,
is my sensory goodbye.


GLS
6.13.91