(for Rebecca, my Beloved)
In the slow turning of the seasons

we hang our names over the cabin door

and hold each other close

in your grandmother’s bedroom, grandfather’s bedroom,

our heads and feet perpendicular to their phantom limbs,

still at the axis, engendering Love.

Same axis, new direction.
Across the lagoon where winter ducks dive deep

spreading circles in the dark

houses hang like shimmering paper lanterns

and circles spread like blessing eyes.

So still. I recall the first time

your eyes danced for me

your upturned face, alighted.
We were young activists then,

committed to our lovers and our causes

but no one had ever looked at me that way before.

Men and indeed women

had looked at me in many ways

but the illumination of your gaze

and the startling movement of hazel eyes

held me. So still.
And we were god-like,

our limbs so strong I could spin 100 miles in a single day,

Brought together in April sunlight

I extend my hand

to connect us climbing a red rock in the desert garden.

How we walked then, the silence sufficient for holding

our proleptic sacramental moment.
Somehow I folded the yucca seeds into your hand

and we said goodbye.

You held those seeds for eighteen years.

Now we dive like ducks in winter

into circles of our own making.