Love allows us to walk in the sweet music
of our particular heart —Jack Gilbert
How Where We Were Was
On the street where you lived
we bought a house without the roots
you hated those false forever knots
and wanted to keep us stars in the trees
on the street where we lived
you made mulch and turned honey golden
and I surrounded us with flowers
and dried the herbs and seasonings of our summers
where we were, there, complete, in a love beyond the saying
as a music of smoky sounds, tenor sax bleeding
the whole tones of us making a love beyond words
to say for what I loved about your face. Holiday birds we thrived
in a green room. Half-moons rising in our eyes
sudden like solid smoke. On that street where we lived
together like stars in the trees. Such a singing without song-sound.
Two refugees planting each other fresh in the air.
A hoe-line could have not sown them any surer.
Strange star roots in the open. Once you said we
knew paradise. Just like that. A paradise. Star roots we were
surely, free to spread about with the honey and all those roses.
by Linda E. Chown
from Empty Mirror