Valentine's Day Poem by John Libertus

I wake alone in the afternoon, a strong wind is blowing -
the forecast says colder tonight;
after all these weeks of hiding in greyness,
the sky has cleared to a mystery,
in its endlessness, foreboding;

and somehow, in the cold blue, deep blue boundlessness,
the everyday is set aside:

the Sky looks through my windows, and it knows me,
with a single look, straight to my deepest core,
shows me
that last, small part of me, inside,
that still pitied flesh;

with this one look, I am freed: I know me,
know the sudden, wild longing within me
to escape this miraculous clay that cages my smile;
through my windows, the Power calls me to something I cannot yet do


the vine doesn't understanding pruning,
this stretching, this forcing to shape,
it aches only to fruit:
why leave me behind, when I ache so to follow?


Like my illness, the everyday,
time, that gives by taking away,
goes with the fading daylight;
but help me remember what you have me forget!
as a bird bounds into flight, let me come!

Far to the west, there's a small, river valley,
where, on a hillside, beneath this same pitiless sky,
lies the grave of my wife, where I ask that these ashes be buried.

Oh, my darling, it is as it was before we met, how I ache to be more than I am!

Something tells me I'm dying, and says death is only a word.