Again, Again!

Again, again, even if we know the countryside of love,
And the tiny churchyard with its names mourning,
And the chasm, more and more silent, terrifying, into which the others
Dropped: we walk out together anyway
Beneath the ancient trees, we lie down again,
Again, among the flowers, and face the sky.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

Come With Me, I Said, And No One Knew (VII)

Come with me, I said, and no one knew
where, or how my pain throbbed,
no carnations or barcaroles for me,
only a wound that love had opened.

I said it again: Come with me, as if I were dying,
and no one saw the moon that bled in my mouth
or the blood that rose into the silence.
O Love, now we can forget the star that has such thorns!

That is why when I heard your voice repeat
Come with me, it was as if you had let loose
the grief, the love, the fury of a cork-trapped wine

the geysers flooding from deep in its vault:
in my mouth I felt the taste of fire again,
of blood and carnations, of rock and scald.

I wish I could take language
And fold it like cool, moist rags.
I would lay words on your forehead.
I would wrap words on your wrists.
“There , there,” my words would say-
Or something better.
I Would ask them to murmur,
“Hush” and “Shh, shh, it’s all right.”
I would ask them to hold you all night.
I wish I could take language
And daub and soothe and coo
Where fever blisters and burns,
Where fever turns yourself against you.
I wish I could take language
And heal the words that were the wounds
You have no names for.

-Julia Cameron

-The Apprehension-
The more you heap my hands
with the coins of love,
won't it expose the more the deceit's depth
that's within me?
Better for me to pay my piling debts
and sail away in an empty boat.
Better that I should starve and you withdraw
your heart filled with nectar
and go away.

To dull my pain
I might wake it in you;
to lighten my load
I might press it on you;
my anguished cry of loneliness well might
keep you awake at night -
such are my fears, why I don't speak freely.
If you can forget,
please do.

On a lonesome trail I was, when you came along,
your eyes set on my face.
I thought I'd say, 'Why not come with me?
Say something to me, please!'
But all of a sudden, as I gazed at your face,
I felt afraid.
I saw a dormant fire's secret smoulder
in the obscure depths
of your heart's darkest night.

Anchor, should I suddenly fan
the flames of your penance into a blazing fire,
wouldn't that stark light slash all veils asunder
and lay my poverty bare?
What have I to offer as sacred fuel
to your passion's sacrificial fire?
Therefore I say to you with humility:
With the memory of our meeting
let me return alone