When Passion Comes Again

A Poem by Dean

There is quiescence, peace.
Flipping through the pages of memory
as I rest in my recliner, there is wonderment as well.
There are the stops at moments when
I first paused routine, to stand and silently observe
a time that I alone would on that spot
create and that would outlast itself.

That is the nature of passion, isn't it?
Nothing to shake the earth--those around me
probably would notice not a thing at all.
It wouldn't make the papers, nor the chronicles
I'd share at suppertime, but I'd remember!
I'd remember, through the decades, page by page,
remembering, those few seconds rushing by
to join the ages, interspersed by those events
that do not matter very much.

The kind of ink so carefully inscribed
within the margins of these pages
is invisible, yet certainly indelible,
nor would I ever wish to have it disappear.
Casual in its creation, this strange, silent nothingness
prevails as mine alone, a curious intangible
that only gravecloth might accommodate,
and that most restlessly.

It is a passion, certainly,
and second-hand, and yet delightfully unique.
It visited me again today...made me wonder
if there are other aging dodderers
who muse as I upon rare moments
when a sleeping passion rouses, stirs
and journeys home again to re-create
like some divine,
ex nihilo...
~