But it Never Lasts

It is easy to fall in love with you,
to feel my silent longing being soaked deep
with something strong, passionate.
Easier to float up off the ground
and into your eyes that say
I want you, come to me
than to seek out those small moments
that flood this emptiness with hope:
the seedling that sprouts between rocks
below the water line, the child
who struggles to invent the biggest
number fifty thousand hundred to describe
how much he loves you past the sun
back down to the blue house where we used to live
over the ocean and back to Baltimore.

It is easier still
to spin in these motion picture tears
in the drama of some forbidden love than to stop
under a tree filled with noisy sparrows
scolding the Jay as he holds their hatchling
between claws on the lowest branch,
as if there were something they could do
to save it.

Easier to feel my whole body whir and scurry
under the thrill of a first touch,
a new breath to call me beautiful, wonderful,
wind storm of a woman than to wait
for the rain to race down the field
like a stampede of wild horses and mist my face,
soak my toes that barely stick over the covered porch.