An early winter evening with
motorcycle wind and headlights moving
through the lights
of houses full of warmth.
I open the door
into a darkened room
and the sound
of running feet.
She is there with the smell of incense lighting candles behind the bedroom door. She has George Winston's music playing And I feel deeply blessed to see her love, her playfulness, her passion.
My hands are cold from the dark ride
and she enfolds me,
and kisses my neck like the heat
from a winter wood stove.
Such feelings of intimacy fill me. And in this moment I am both spirit and flesh; Transient, and yet imperishable. This washes over me ... I. am. loved. So many years, and so many women, I've passed through just to gain this vision.
Just to be able
to see how deep
her goodness, sincerity,
and caring, are.
I tell her this and she laughs at me. She says it just takes some of us longer than others to see the obvious. I can see that these soft experiences of intimate reality are so much of what is real and worthy in us. And that all the rest are only the moments between these moments.
But.... but... These human moments of ours can also pass in darkness. In jungles . ..from where gaze fearful hidden eyes amid the scream of bullets where women hide babies with hands covered by dirt. Places of terror and death.
And these are ours as well. For we are both the light and the shadow. This world cannot see it's insane. But I will remember what is real. And I, too, will dim the room and burn incense for someone. and gather our small love and peace against the storm. gallagher 20 Nov 87
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —