The Life of O'Riely

I can hear the wispers of a thousand memories
in the waves of the sea
sitting on a blanket under the moon
I recall most vividly
our conversation about Life,
about Loss,
about Love.


"Have you ever been in Love", timidly and woefuly
your words spilled and dripped with an irritating cadence
onto my lap, down my leg and into my left shoe
I spoke with lips silent and eyes laughing
ruefully

I answered finaly in my own sweet time
years and and age ago when I wore that blue dress
"How Freudian." I said "For humanity to look to some
egalitarian epiphany. Some long ago
tribal right of passage into adulthood
like a man wearing a fedora."

It's twenty years hence that age and I have sewn
the seeds of birth and death and day to day
and hour to hour watching you wanting me
to wear again that blue dress and so I smile
wide and strong and clear in the moonlight

"It's not being in love that changes us" I sigh
and roll over with my nose on your chin
feeling the prickle of your beard and lifting a hand
to carress your face, "It's the act of loving."

And I can hear the wispers of a thousand memories
in the Life of you and me.