Try as I might,
I couldn’t pretend passion,
or even feign interest.
The depths of those
old, slow rollers,
curling in from far off places,
never explaining where they were,
where they had been,
or where they were going.
Light like a bright star,
dragged me off into some strange odyssey,
away from the comforts that I had known,
away from protecting walls,
caring arms
and warm coffee mornings.
Out the edge,
there is no past to regret.
No tomorrow to anticipate.
The sheer immensity of the universe
precludes all notions of time
and distance,
and love.
Each beat of the heart
is as precious
as the birth of a new Sun.
Each breath,
the drawing in of matter
to the mass of the singularity.
I did not leave
because you did not love me.
I did not venture here
because you were wrong,
or because you had betrayed me.
I left,
only because the smell of your hair,
the feel of your skin,
the taste of you kiss
were so perfect,
so definitive.
I could have died next to you
and been happy,
but I did not,
so I wandered,
blissfully perplexed.
Wondering,
what kind of universe
would allow even one moment
of perfection?
What kind of universe
draws to people together,
perfect,
immaculate,
intractable
and then destroys them?
What secrets might be had,
not tangled in limbs
and love
and bed sheets?
What words
might be spurred
by beholding the Grande Infinite?
What answers,
if any
could be coaxed from the edge
of love and sanity,
sex, space and forever?
What could I learn out there
that would return our love in kind?
I guess only God knows;
for even in the majesty
of collapsing binary stars
and bursts of celestial gasses
that give birth to galaxies
and the edge of the universe,
the deep-black, never-been…
… I find nothing…
…still nothing…
…without you.
HG – 2017
