I used to tell Lise that I’d dreamed about her
at some indefinable time in the past.
Soft memories of her passion and spirit were there;
a hundred impassioned afternoons in an upstairs garret
lost in the play of lovers.
I could never explain or remember more
of these gossamer images but that she brought
these memories out in me ….
Once, on mushrooms, she saw a terrifying view
of some desperate moment
in the middle ages
that scared and moved her deeply.
She and I talked about
if we’d known each other before, as lovers do.
Today, something finally connected for me.
Lise and I have met before
and what has happened between us now
is part of it.
Perhaps we’ve met many times before
on this very battlefield
of passion and pain and addiction
we’ve just quit.
In the past I must have killed her for love,
or she me, or we may have both died of it…
Perhaps, many times, in different places
and different ways.
Always struggling against this same insanity
and indebtedness that addictive love engenders.
Unable to summon the spiritual strength
to endure, we must have succumbed to violence.
just to come back
and try and work it out again.
Last night we succeeded.
We went through all the passion and pain together
and found the grace to remember ourselves,
the strength to know that our spiritual natures
are more enduring than these
material illusions so seamlessly woven.
gallagher
10 dec 85
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —