RSR ~ POETRY
WILD ANIMAL
Where does the wild animal
of my love
live in you
when we are not together?
Does it hibernate
curled up within your warmth
impervious to your cold?
Does it prowl
the deserted mesa of your night
howling at the moon
it cannot touch
it can not touch....
I would like to think
there are moments
my love glides in you
with great tan wings
spread against
the feverish sun,
but there are jackrabbits
in you, I am sure,
wary in the face of such a love.
Does it gallivant
into your marshy subconscious
like an ungainly moose?
Does it make you smile
to see how awkward
something so strong can be?
Does it abide in you
even in drought?
- even in winter?
Does it migrate
to where it might thrive?
Does love transform itself
as if it were a chrysallis?
Does it swim up-current
in the faith of
enduring regeneration?
I wonder sometimes
when I cross my own wildernesses
and find the wind-scoured bones
of derelict loves
- brilliant white,
a whisper in the dry grasses,
if these have somehow made themselves, in death,
more a part of me than in life.
But how might we say
which is which
when each absorbs the other?
In such a way
does love itself become eternal?
R.S. Russell