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Why We Will Never Say Hello Or Good-Bye

Why We Will Never Say Hello or Good-bye
By Ingrid Showalter Swift 
Rake your fine fingers across my tender lips...
waiting with the hunger that years have made.
...Do you still hear me? 
I am off in a land of daisies and flowers, of many colors.
I walk down sandy paths of pale soft skin... that I imagine 
are yours 
The water-butter beneath my finger tips 
is your skin as well 
and I look out across a far away horizon and know 
you live there
breathing on, in unison with arms open to the sky 
You beam as the sun... I weep as the waves.
I ache and bend and cry out in labor pain 
There is no separation... but the heart still seems to seep 
with it. 
I can see your eyes 
and in my eyes still dark and far away 
...you drift quietly on a raft bobbing in a safe cove
The night still shifts to the wetted calm of us from time to time 
and I know the trees and dogs can feel us moving 
beneath the surface, like mermaids
Our tails are webbed jewels of gold and myrrh
Our fingers are intermingled... our cells combined...
Our torsos are sleek and clean 
We separate... dip and dive like porpoises...
They know... I know they know... and hear our ever calls 
and weep 
and bow 
and weep 
and dive for us 
in the still of twilight’s dancing diamonds
Why not? I cry... but know all too well the answers 
Because there are flowers on our paths
and children playing in the skin of the sand 
and we are one in our purpose 
and one in the words and one as they fly over head - wing to wing...
As autumn climbs the hill to winter...
we will be in the flickering light of fire side 
and the warmth of the soups that brew 
and are handed one to the other 
and we will ever be in the sawdust 
and in the creation of anything new
and in time as it flows back and forth with the tide
Nothing can ever sever us from the ants 
and the shells 
and the mail that arrives in the mail box 
Do you know that we are only a car ride away from forever?
Do you know that we are nothing more than one phone call apart?
...just seven numbers apart! 
and it will remain the distance of forever because we know 
how fine the sand feels between our toes 
how smooth the wind blows over our wet torsos and white sails 
and how water splashes into tiny beads of light at the bow
and how the tree grows 
and how the stone feels from the inside 
We will remain alone and surrounded by love 
...because grass is green
God! How I love you! 
Tell me again that you know... tell me... call me... tell me 
...that it is real... that you can hear me 
that I am the same as the child beneath your palm
loved ever, unconditionally
and you are proud of who I am and who I am becoming

Copyright © Ingrid Showalter Swift | Year Posted 2013

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