Between You and Me

what will you have me make
of us when the sun has long set

what kind of song
can we raise for the children
when they hold black-eyes
carried from a harvest of many tears

somewhere in the corner of my dreams
I have come to the crossroad
and without lingering a bit
I go without you

I have asked the plant-doctor
to stop crushing leaves and berries
to heal the thousand wounds
festering, whistling somewhere in the soul

for many seasons I’ve tread
through gravels with a dove's step
rising every dawn among twisted pine
on my bedroom wall your paintings
stall tall demons of despair
they stare at me and now I face the owl you hid
in the bouquet of wildflowers

this dawn, in the sitting room I read
about the windless threadwork of hatred
and the landscapes of tears
you left on the darkening window
when all stars melted away