The heart is a child lost at night in the black forest of the mind

It's hard
because I love you
and easy because
I trust you

Even when hearts choke in the darkness

And blowflies born in black clouds
from clods of reeking meat
on swinging hooks

darken the sky

with their trembling mirrors

Even when wailing fear, blind with weeping,
stumbles through the endless cave

You are here

gathering flowers in the bright garden

waiting for me

to be born

The hearts labor can never be too freely given nor too dearly sold

Never go

But if you do go

you will remain

gathering flowers

in the gardens

of my heart
until I go too

Golden rainwater glowing. Broad leaves calculate the drops, with a sound like an endless handful of seeds poured onto a drum.

God alone knows the fullness of shame, some secret even to myself but for the sensation, arising like black bile on even the most sun-brightened and untroubled of days, that I have wronged a dear friend, disgraced my dignity, or damned my future joy by inaction, or ignorance. It is an invisible substance that contaminates pleasure and corrodes potential. Lie in bed and let your fate come to meet you, comes the whisper of inner weakness. Attempt nothing.