Weekly Poems: A Congratulations Poem on a New Home and More

HOME IS THE HABIT THAT DWELLS IN HABITATION

Home is the habit that dwells in habitation.
Out of the familiar comes the longing,
Making place a matter of belonging,
Enduring urge that hungers for relation.

WHERE DO WE GO

Where do we go when we go to a place
That simply is no place at all?
When we step out of time to become nothing more
Than a memory few can recall?

How can we be when we no longer are?
Or, earlier, not yet have been?
A bit of eternity sits in our souls
Though we live in the house of the wind.

Consciousness comes like a stranger to call,
Both us and yet something quite more.
Where it may come from and where it may go
Is a wonder behind a locked door.

TRUTH IS RARELY AN EXPRESSION OF LOVE

Truth is rarely an expression of love:
Honesty most often precedes pain.
In hope there is the fragrance of illusion;
Romance requires the charm of light confusion;
The best lovers are criminally insane.
Yet lies, eventually, will suck out passion.

One must be truthful if one hopes to love:
Not cruelly, but enough to ease delusion.
Each love must be broken, then built back again.

HORROR IS A KIND OF PLAY

Horror is a kind of play,
A need to undergo
Life along the borderline,
Lest death be just a name.
On Halloween we dream away
What wailing we well know,
Enchanted by the danger sign
Each savors up and down the spine,
Near haunts that are no game.

AUNT LOUISE

Aunt Louise lived only half on Earth,
Unable quite to leave her prior home,
Nestled in a dream, perhaps by birth,
Though loved--ah, loved!--ultimately alone.
Let her be a lesson in delight:
Of cats and restaurants and small routines,
Undaunted by the nearness of the night,
Improvising much with meager means.
She was for us an enigmatic face,
Eloquent of innocence and grace.

LOVE RETURNS ON SATURDAYS

Love returns on Saturdays,
Having been away
To labor in the labyrinth
That underlies our joy.

How dark the days of abstinence,
Of sleep too dire to stay,
Of mornings mere mechanical
And flesh no hands employ!

But then--Ah, then!--on Saturdays
Love finally has its way,
Coming into crevices
Whose cravings passions buoy.

How beautiful, the love that can
Such soporifics sway!
No wasteland world of weekdays shall
Our dalliance destroy!

COULD WE BUT HAVE THE CLARITY OF FATE

Could we but have the clarity of fate
Or see the future as we do the past,
Little would we miss the mystery
Unknown to those who know what lies ahead.
Mountains make horizons definite,
Blocking off infinity, the last
Unbroken wave upon this solid sea,
Singing songs that we have long since heard.
Do, then, those few sailors celebrate,
Alone amidst the watery wilderness,
Yet seeking grandly what it is to be.