You Are Fabulous Creatures, Each and Everyone of You

If you've heard me read this aloud, I wrote it for you. If you have not, read it aloud to yourself, and know that I wrote it for you too.

only in the high sierra have i seen such beauty.
honest piercing beauty that boomerangs around the room
in smiles and tears and
gazes held.

starbright, sunlight, what can i say to you who know me so well?
I wonder who you've met-
what claire slipped through the gap in my teeth,
stretched its legs, shook hands--
what claire did you glimpse between pauses like a bird flitting among trees
what claire did you laugh at and with

i don't know but it's something in me
, and it's glowing.

i have only met a similar sliver of any of you, just a
fingernail moon
of your
full selves.

and so i truly hope that i will get to dance through the changing tides with you, learn more, open more, laugh more with all of you.

the difference between what will happen and what is likely to happen is yet great-

there are gaps in this world where magic lives.
the cracks let the light through, and you
oh my,
if you were a candle
i would be the daring finger dashing through your flame,
and never getting burnt.

and if you were a grove of trees i would be a squirrel running
up and down your textured bark all day.

and if you were the wind,
sometimes gentle,
I would be a cloud,
blown away forever.

if you were a couch, I'd be a coffee table, and we would talk in throaty British accents whenever the people left the room.

if you were a mountain range, i'd be a pair of hiking boots,
exploring your valleys and ridges my whole life.

and if you were just a bunch of people,
i guess i'd be a person too
so i could love you with
hands and feet and eyes and tears.

the water wheel turns
i receive love
turns
i give love
turns
and all the while love was turning through the air
like dust, like rain, like snow.

close your eyes.
there is light inside you.

part your lips,
your tongues hide rubies.

spread your toes,
earth is beneath your feet.

open your chest,
there are birds inside,
who want to sing.

breathe for love is in the air like orange blossoms, breathe deep, because it reminds us all of home.

this claire wants to curl up inside your ear so she can
whisper sweet things to you all night,

but there are adventures to be had.

even to think of eating straw
berries with you,
on a meadow of green grass:
i would no longer feel that i was dying
in mordor on a melting mountain of doom,
but that i was in the shire, at home, all along.