Cantos of Love

("Red Skin", 2023, original encaustic) Cantos of Love Was it ever here at all… Faces, eyes, lips, breasts and thighs Parade through memory Fading, fading fast As years advance. Maybe these closets Need more juice to unlock Than these old bones hold. Funny about memories We think they're all ours But what if it takes two To unlock what was made together And so they, as much from disuse As from a privacy withheld from afar, Blend and blur into mere approximations. So in dreams Who is it we meet if not our own Self Shared with others to the extent we can In so many masks And who is it we continue to play the parts of If not those who haunt us with unfinished business. Thus the need for release Of all we love and hold All we’ve ever held in love And ever rejected in fear Release for the sake of memory of self and other For the sake of Life For the sake of Love. I As it moves along Purifying as it goes Refreshingly flows II Celebrating bliss Of lifetimes culminations In this mere caress III Endless river flows Within us and without us Whether known or not IV This love knows no bounds Words and thoughts can't hold it in So it is release V Beyond our control The seasons pass like clockwork Blossoms become fruit VI So where did it go Was it ever here at all This love on the breeze (11/7/23)