The Infinite Number

I kept you

through all the drifts

of purpose:

the ever mercurial shifts

in reason, the constant rocking back

and forth of mismatched rhymes;

I promised then

promised again

then went about my business:

the language of the heart

has an infinite number

of dialects--

some as ancient as the first pulse

of precipitates 

four billion years ago--

limping back after

looking

for you

to stitch the grizzled wounds

I kept revisiting

the bitter cold

northern nights

spun from the sun

your southern nature

bit hard for wanting

to keep the new found tongue

from freezing.

These days we keep a safe distance

between us

and

the scars

having learned where the fault lines

make for treacherous decisions

the dance

is a little slower, a little less

guns and roses--

the seconds wind

with the easier precision

of a clock no longer meant

to keep time

the kisses a little

less bruising

the bites a little

less unkind

the torture confined

to our chamber's mind.

Ken e Bujold

Author's Note

the lion's share of this was pulled from an old notebook (1992, a bad year). On reading I couldn't pull myself away from what was there, and so a few revisions, a little bit of addition and voila! Before people begin to think it is an indication of current state of life, no it's not, save the fact that at 60 a man is (or should be) a little more aware of fault lines and live wires to be avoided. Enjoy it, I know I did, resuscitating life back into it

Reviews

[softlyfall]

November rain came out in 1992, I think. You must have been about 30 when you had that bad year. There is a truth about pain that keeps us from giving up- pain can only be remembered intellectually, it does not recreate itself like the memory of sadness of joy. easy to say to oneself, it is worth the risk, and perhaps it usually is. "A glow stick had to break before it shines" and all that.
All that aside, a wonderful poem, reborn