1— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
His face beside me in this moment here
the best of all we’ve done
down through the years… to Jackson Browne’s song – “In the Shape of a Heart”
his face beside me in the moonlight as i’m lying here
the moon and the water’s rush
a midnight ivory cheer.
i look at him and i see our lives
i look at him and i see all we tried.
everything we were and tried to be
is lying here beside me.
2
everything, and all we were,
all the love and all the tears
is lying here beneath the moon
riding with me thru a distant june
i remember your brow and hands
your eyes in love and all your plans.
i remember you at nineteen
and all the heartaches since then we’ve seen.
and in this frozen moment of time
this child of six is yours and mine
and my eyes well with every line
that he’s the best from all our time.
this child of love, half you and i
is all that’s left of what we tried
everything that we were
is lying here with your skin and hair.
i’m not wanting to go back to what it was we tried
but here with chris i can feel the silent running tide
of what we were and how it died
of how we loved and how we lied
3
i’m rambling here against the moon
in this distant year, this distant june
chris beside me, fast asleep.
i can see his face against the moonlite summer night
and find that all the love we were is lying here
vectored down through all the years
the love and pain, the joy and tears.
your face at nineteen and at thirty-six
my memories run and mix
that love and life are made of this
we gave our lives for love, and chris.
4
God, release my hand and heart to speak
the thoughts i have so fill my heart
i want to say them clearly, let them part
chris beside me, moonlight and water’s rush
his face in ivory, made of rose and i
it snaps me back through all the years
nineteen and starting, thirty-six and bitter tears.
every line that crossed her face
every dream that my lies debased
finds me here beneath the moon
on chris’ face, this distant june.
oh, rose, what can i say
that we tried for love, but were washed away…
and this boy is all that’s left.
5
i think it’s coming, what i want to say
that all the love i thought had washed away
is really here inside of him
that has you skin and your hair.
and that everything i mourn of us
is here at six, our love in trust.
and if we part to never mend
this boy is ‘us’, our love won’t end.
my tears have found me as i look on him
and memories run of all we’ve been.
6
rose, i wonder if you’ll ever know
that i cried for you and i tonight
for our lives and our love and all our time.
for all your dreams and all my lies.
i looked at chris
and photographed there
was the best of us, in his skin and hair.
i don’t want to go back
but i mourn that we poured so much of ourselves
into our lives and that living beat us down.
i remember seeing the lines cross our faces
love and pain and the aging’s trails.
dreams and love and skin and time
houses and poems and friends and wine.
chris is lying here, six years old
and, save for him, some flame’s gone cold.
i don’t understand, perhaps i never will,
how love and pain are both God’s will.
gallagher
28 jun 86
Irvine
Archive for the ‘Irvine’ Category
1986-06-28 1
Saturday, June 28th, 19861986-07-15
Tuesday, July 15th, 1986Ai, my mortality gives me such an ache sometimes.— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
This little face, Chris,
growing and changing under my hands
and my memories talking to me
of people and places seen … and gone.
Is my awakening only to make me more aware
of how mortal and transient we are?
Rose is here … and Lise
and all the books on my shelves.
Moments the authors took serious.
Poppies arising in the fields
and perishing
in a never ending cycle of seasons.
Like the yeast that rises,
or the surf that churns against the rocks,
we are the froth
of the advancing front of life.
Our brief moments
transfixing us for a lifetime
with the fate of passing forms.
But it is no less.
That I’ve watched the lines come
and cross Rose’s face and heart.
That I’ve seen families and wars
come and go.
Felt the ache of love,
and the pain of heartbreak,
and watched my youth pass
and my dreams mellow
against reality.
Our visions clear of the illusions
and,behind, we find ourselves
stark naked
and dressed in animal skins.
And we see our fates written
in the generations rising
and perishing around us.
There is no exit here.
Save, through our hearts.
In the killing fields of life
we wait in the sun for the harvest
and mistake the joy of our growth
for the promise of divinity.
All of it!
Youth, joy, clarity, vision,
mortality, growth, love, pain
and death
merely outline our hearts.
For it is with our hearts
that we must face these things.
For it is with our hearts
that we experience living
and it is through the heart’s
deep belief
in its spiritual seed-ship
that we can pass the gates
of this flaming and remorsless
reality.
Our mortality can be seen
as the profound price
of spiritual realization.
That love and pain
and our passage
from youth to death
is the food of Gods
seeking birth.
So we must love, must risk,
must dream and age
and see ever deeper
through these illusions.
We must witness fairly
and act impeccably
as we travel this road.
We must weather away
against our experiences
and burn for life
against implacable death.
We must love each other
with compassion and fervor
as we melt
in these furnaces of time.
And we must walk tall
in our belief
in our own divinity
straight through every storm,
every distraction, every illusion,
every love and attachment and passion.
Every realization and mood and insanity
straight into our deaths.
For, as Gods seeking birth
we can do no less
until we have loved,
known, experienced it all.
Gallagher
15 July 86
1986-11-09
Sunday, November 9th, 1986
every moment, night and day.
crystal, locked in, unrelenting awareness
every breath, every posture, every bite
all one.
all part of the illuminated awareness
that has, as its object,
its own blossoming.
that has as its effect
the figure/ground reversal
within which everything else
appears as illusion;
as dreams which are traps,
as distortions which ensnare.
as consciousness we can be one.
we can unify through achieving
the critical mass
of self-awareness necessary
to self-sustain self-creation
immediate eternal razor edge.
but before
we are fragments of light
lost in dreams dim and gray
with the lights and motors and pumps
of the illusion to sooth us.
and even after we become aware
of the possibility of unity
those dreams wait with
a thousand lifetimes of patience
calling us back to sleep.
Gallagher
9 nov 86
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —