White Stone Journal

Some see you in the flowers

or thunder.

I don't.

Some see you in mothers

or children.

I don't.

Some can see you in a book,

or impassioned speech.

I can't.

Your hand covers the flower

as you make it

and I see only you.

I see you call the mother to love her children

or the preacher to live the speech.

You enrapture me

and I lose all else.

You love me

fiercely,

tightly,

now.

Then I am lost in you,

dissipated,

like incense in a vast church,

floating without care,

in love.

Then you gather me together,

and re-form me,

arms and legs,

with feet on ground.

You give me a loving embrace

and send me out.

To where?

William E. Rushman, November 1996