All The Great Things Above Me

The full moon casts the end and the beginning.

The river tamarind tree -- dead and slender -- 

beside the thriving pink bougainvillea

-- vibrant, flamboyant, frolicking with butterflies --

rises mightily like a distant castle.

So cold, the sea breeze leaves me shivering,

and I don't want any warmth.

I don't want to feel anything. 

The sky binds my countenance to it,

as if I am indebted to its chains.

Gazing at the eyes peppered

across the cloudless night, I see none.

I see tomorrow is never promised,

as murky as an aging vision,

thinning and fading.

Oh, how bright is the night

I am blinded not by this love.

The seed of this mystery

keeps on growing and growing

and sprouting all the more its greenness.

I listen to your voice from the far mountain,

to the strings I so long to hear.

My heart plunges to ache after ache.

I want to see your delicate face,

to stare at it, to adore the beauty that it is.

Oh, my love, this clarity from Heaven speaks out loud.

All the great things above me,

reassuring and comforting,

fill the spaces in my whole being.

The divine works enliven me fully.

The Sheets

I am one grateful man,

for the comfort you bring.

Softly and patiently,

you cover our nest

that I can only be free.

Beneath and in between,

roses spring across the yard.

How beautiful is this peace,

as unblemished as the cotton sky.

Your quietness is sheep,

yet the valor of king.

Beyond the rustle of the night,

your whispers soothe her to rest.

I am from the star,

a celestial rock,

watching over her.

I weep, I wish, I pray to be

with her in her sleep.

Her Strength

The smell of her dark hair leads me to a field of greens, reds, and pinks

Swaying with the sultriness of the wind, a balm to a battle-worn soul.

All the birds, never joyless, hum a familiar melody sent from a night sky decked with stars.

I feel her nearness as I close my eyes, holding my warm arm.

An image of her emerges -- faint sun's vibrant and most eloquent surprise.

On a morn of April, she dazzles, she dances, singing her heart out loud, ever childlike, yet she weeps.

She sobs in silence, in a vacuum of bruises and wounds.

My Maria, my life's rose, my heart aches with her.

Speechless tears sink in my every day, a suffering of being so far away from her.

The unforgiving seas and soaring mountains, so overwhelming we breakdown many a time.

But a magnetic string holds our universe together, an anchor we cling to.

Forever gracious and grateful, my dear Maria finds comfort in the promises of the Word.

Often does she remind me of that, truly a ray of light she is.

Her strength awakens me from slumber, pulling me out of the pit; she is strength.

I love her deeply, and the fragrant blooms and swinging birds are in the know.