rare birds on the cliffs of love

For Candy. And all who seek love, against the fates.

rare birds on the cliffs of love

the winds blast stone smooth and bleak, and yet you seek
life. life in all its beauty. love in all its futility
in the hands and hearts of those who never paused to learn
that there are other things but fire that burn impatient flesh.

I have seen you in the rocks as I make my feral climbs
to find the highest peaks from which to hurl myself
into the teeth of hot winds that burn flesh from regret,
wet fingers barely hanging on to a sustaining metaphor.

I have watched you, with eyes in four dimensions, living
for something you believed in more than anything your senses
defended as real. you were why I learned to fly and did not die
every time I leapt from cliff to cliff to empty air mirages.

you are the embodiment of my joy, my peace, my lust contained
in a soft jar of what to others might seem rough stone or jade,
but to me is that which grew from flight attempted with hope
as real to me as my own. for it was made from you. and us.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.