What you feel is life, what you live is another story.

Category: MG (Page 4 of 11)

The Tree of Love

I can almost see your footprints in the snow. I can almost hear our winter wonderland packing beneath each footfall. We walk, sometimes silently and sometimes telling great stories; sometimes apart and sometimes nestled in a warm embrace. We can share a quiet introspection or laugh loudly with the words that echo in the snow, either is fine with souls who have set forth on some great journey and who honor that journey in each and every step.

I can almost see you standing on the ridge. Along the journey there have been moments where you were unsure and I’ve led the way. There have been times when uncertainty rankled my mind, and you pointed out the trail that lay before us. Together we have made it here, to this ridge. You gaze out to eternity as I marvel at your strength, your power, and the love you shine through every pore of your existence.

I can almost hear the chants of those dancing around a Great Fire, and see us sitting before its glow. I see your face, beautiful in the orange flicker of the Fire. I feel your hand in mine as your head falls on my shoulder. I kiss your crown, feeling the warmth of the fire radiate from your skin.

A Chief came before us like a shadow before the fire. He smiled as he handed you a pipe, mentioning for us both to smoke it. As we did, he touched our face lightly and though in front of the fire it was as if the fire was reflected in his eyes. His smile warmed us and we exhaled, the smoke uniting in the night before offering itself up to the sky. He took the pipe from us, bowed in our presence, and vanished into the darkness just beyond the fire.

Suddenly, we appeared as two ice sculptures carved through many winters of many lifetimes together. The Great Fire warmed us, and in its spring our melting formed one puddle on the Earth. The chants of our Elders intensified as the crackling of the Fire grew louder, our puddle vibrated with the energy of gratitude and the blessings being bestowed. The dark canvas of the night, painted in the dim orange of the Fire, now revealed many Elders holding hands and bowing their heads in honor.

The Chief who had shared the pipe spoke in a language unfamiliar but easily understood. He shared a story of two cardinals who had to fly into many strong winds, through many lifetimes, to finally land on the same branch. Their journey had them question the branch, but their perch held strong. What was destined could not be avoided, and what was happening was surely destined. When they flew in directions sometimes different and sometimes the same, it was the branch that would always hold firm upon their return. The branch was offered by the Tree of Love, and it would be the home they returned to for the rest of their lives.

The Chief paused, and bent to the Earth. There, he drew an  on the ground before the fire. He then mentioned it was his time to leave us.

The Elders turned to go, and the chants subsided as the Fire grew dim. In the silence we could hear the wolves howling in the distance as the stars revealed themselves in the darkness. We held each other, still warm from the night, knowing that while nothing was different everything had changed. Love always present was given its due and in that sprouting a new Tree of Love was planted by our meeting, fed by the songs of our Elders, warmed by the Fire of our souls and watered by the melting of our winter.

I give thanks for the visions I am granted, and for the ability to describe them with my words. I give thanks for the muse that inspires me daily, who lights my Great Fire, and who points me in the direction of my path when I feel I’ve lost it. Such love, born in Spirit and thus so inspired, can only honored and cherished.

Peace.  

In Sanity

There is as an essence of me, in sanity,
A moment to reflect,
To sing lullabies to the demons of my existence,
Lull them to sleep as they tantrum like the children that they are,
Find stillness in the mountain winds that wreak havoc on my neighbors.

I sit in sanity,
Watching the dandelion seeds blow haplessly about my scene,
Like snowflakes from the winter I have endured,
Waiting for someplace to land beside the Aspens,
Giving birth to something that looks nothing like themselves.

While awaiting the cool rains of Heaven’s soaking spring,
Mud made thick by the melting snows around my feet,
The seeds dancing to the waves of earthen ether,
Calling me onward though I love the muck between my toes,
It reminds me of a beach where we once stood, together.

There seems nothing quite like a transition,
Where fear and uncertainty marry the guise of faith to tortured men,
Holding a light of truth as the Sun burns off the morning dew,
I hear something moving the grasses laden with anticipation,
Could it be I’m hearing you?

My heart left beating, I have surrendered to our altar,
I have no certainty in the noises I’ve been hearing,
Yet I’ll sit by eternally adoring the sounds, in sanity
Watching my life beat on the sacred marble where I wait,
Longing for the flowers these seeds and rains conceive.

I trust the prose spring has rushing down the mountainside,
The water’s sounds painting smiles on my soul,
Hand-in-hand we dance to a promise notwithstanding,
In a truth our hearts knew before the moment we were born,
Or so we say as we sit still watching things born in sanity.

For reality comes like a tsunami cascading through the valley,
The monsoons of spring building with every winter storm,
I hear a promise whispered through the ages,
It moves like a breeze through the soaked grasses on our time,
I still wonder, could it be you that I am hearing?

This night, I close my eyes with the truth I find in sanity,
Daring demons to resurface despite the visions I have found,
Silent laughs and slight oaths made in the darkness,
I swear I can feel your hand upon my chest,
A prayer, may I awaken in your arms. (tg)

~Tom Grasso ©2019

Parting, Again (A love letter)

My Love,

Don’t leave me too quickly, or be too long in return. Kiss me softly under the gray skies of Winter. Promise me the warm embrace of Spring in all that you say it offers, the unpushed flower unfolding, the loving discussions of what will be. What more do we need to make real this truth we whisper our oaths to? What gods must rise from the depths to snare for us the beast that keeps us quiet? Where must our feet fall to leave our imprint on the Earth if not to awaken the very soul of Her as you make your way to heights unmatched? What views must we find from which we speak our oaths to one another, to God, and to the Mother who has blessed us both with life and blessed wonder?

I seek not much from this tortured plain but to rise above it. I must scratch and claw at the hard-packed trail beneath my feet just to get a glimpse of Heaven. Not two days ago you sat on Her ridge, gazing out through those Pearly Gates, your soul screaming in victory at the undertaking. Words poured from your soul, words you could only guess at their meaning, that brought tears from my heart. As you read that prose to me the glorious trembles in my soul rattled my truth like a saber in its scabbard begging to be unsheathed.

The truth, you are it. You leave my space and once again the sadness pours from my heart like a torrent. Parting with you is such an unnatural act, one I have no desire to engage in and one that can leave me wandering aimlessly in words that flow effortlessly from my fingers. I pray that Venus end my torment but she laughs at me. I beseech Cupid to true his arrow to the center of my heart, but he too laughs and then shows me the bleeding wound he has already left there. I seek comfort in the rising Sun but there is none to be had, only these words that flow, I can only hope, directly to your thirsty lips.

What I do, I do not know. I should have mastered this already. It should be easier to watch you ride off toward your destiny, except I am your destiny and you are heading in the opposite direction. I want to further simplify this life and transform this journey into one devoted to nothing but creation.  I wish to wake up beside you if only just to gaze upon your form in the dim morning light. Then I wish to tell the story of that day that began with so much love vast oceans could not contain it; a day that ends as it began with a kiss and your stoic man gazing lovingly at your form while you searched for my hand beneath the covers. There, those oceans will flow onto our bodies as we dance to our Divine music, and recite poetry that has no words, only intention. We so love…

Ah, those visions of eternity that ring truth upon the bells in our chests! We walk our dog upon the streets of this village, reciting stories of the first time we sat on that spot, ate at that place, slept at that Inn along the way. Our gait will be slower then, but our intentions just a pure as when we could run at full speed on hardened pavement. You will sit on that Left-hand chair as you did the first time we ventured here, and I will look at you with the same love and care as I did that first time and I will be reminded of the great fortune I have had just to have had these walks with you, this life with you, and the moments we have created on our journey. There is so much to create, my love, and we are the very ones who can create it.

For now, I will dim the lights in our space until you fill it once again, and light a candle in your honor beside the altar of my heart. I will say a prayer that echoes in the empty chamber that is reserved for you and look toward the sky through the windows that adorn our cathedral. I will ask each star for your safe return and beg of God the chance to know old age with you, my beloved, my soul’s mate, my heart’s spoken truth.

Safe travels, my beloved. My heart goes with you.

Your Love

The Promise I Must Keep

I cannot remember the first time I heard the willow branches sing a song,
Playing havoc with the steady gait of my life.
Or the first time I noticed the soft, golden grass tickle the insides of my toes,
My laughter spreading triumphantly, 
Sadness the air that carried my joy now echoing through the canyon.

Those things have always seemed to be,
Even as the memories reborn 
When you held my face between your hands,
Pierced my soul with the truth 
That I had found you.
Finally.

Two hundred years ago, or maybe more,
We had chased each other around the lonely willow tree,
The one that hugged the places where we'd play,
Besides the field of wildflowers.
One purple flower would give itself to me,
I'd take her sacrifice and slide her by your ear,
Your smile melting any winter left in my heart.

You'd tell me something wonderful,
About the dream that we were having,
That would be a dream again in a couple hundred years or more,
The dream you shared, my love, my never-to-be-forsaken.
My face in your hands back then, you made me swear.
"Remember this in two hundreds years, or maybe more?" 

"When we meet then, you will remember. I will hold your face between my hands, and I will shred that veil you've placed before your eyes. Naked and shaken you will forget but only to be reminded. When you remember, we will never part again.

We will fall, and fall, and then fall some more. The burning memory of my fingers on your face, your name searing through my heart, will have us rise, and rise, and then rise some more. 

Marry me by a willow tree, whatever that means to us then. Do not stop until I do. In this life I chased you, in the next you will do the same. Yet know it like the wind to the wings of a butterfly. The chase is not a game to us, it is like the whittling from a great tree the statue of our hearts. When the winds calm, the butterfly will find its rest, and the masterpiece will be complete."

That's the way it is, for you and me my love,
I don't remember when it started for I was but stardust then,
We made a promise long before there were flowers or fields,
Or willow trees to guard them,
A promise we honor under the bluest mountain skies,
In an inn left-handed to its undertaking,
A promise we are so very close to keeping.

For I know a place.
A place made within the infinite measure of the Universe,
Just for us,
Where the breeze still flows through willow's holy branches,
Where flowers bloom begging to touch your ear,
Where your heart will be reminded of the oath you made me swear,
And you will smile, scared and shaken though you be,
As you remember it was you who made me promise.
It is me who will always keep my word.






Because I Love You

My Love,

Today, a milestone of sorts. We, you and I, share in this moment that has so many special meanings. Those meanings will remain private between us as we bathe in them together. As it will be, as it is, and as it shall be.

There is some light meant for only us to share as we cuddle under the blankets gazing at the same beautiful fire. It is a fire that we’ve danced around and gazed upon many times in our lifetimes together, warming our souls and hearts as the music we create kicks the dust up from under our feet. We hear the drumbeats in our touch and find the rhythm in our hearts, often reminded that we’ve been here before in some way, at some time. True lovers such as we are not meant for the ordinary. Rather, we create the extraordinary in our actions, our deeds, and the dances we share under the moonlight beside a fire meant only for us.

In truth, my Love, you are the great song. The song I’ve heard in my distant youthful challenges. The song I’ve heard in my withering strength, in my despair, in my darkness. It is a song that’s inspired me to rise when all has seemed lost, and begged me to find a fire so we could share a glance together, a moment where everything was right and the world was in its right place. I did not know you, but I loved you then. I could not hear you, but I heard you then. I could not see you, but I knew that you existed. Imagine, a faith so strong as to find a way to survive despite not knowing why. If you can, then you can imagine you, to me.

Then imagine the moment you slowly walked through those doors into my life. Imagine the moment of complete awe, of complete uncertainty in the certainty. Imagine me, a man sculpted to be your lover from the moment he was born suddenly embracing the very love his soul had always promised him existed. Overwhelmed I was, but I was made for the task.

Now, we are here, finally together beside the fire of our love, nestled tightly beneath the blanket of our embrace. Though we’ve discovered the truth of love we share, we have yet to fully grasp the reality of our union and what the ripples we have sent through the Universe. The words we pen and the stories we tell are but one of many that we have yet to discover and who have yet to reveal the beauty they birth. The beauty will be in their realization, my love, and I look forward to each discovery we share.

It is, on this day when we honor our first moments when the love between us sprouted, that I honor all of those things. Because I love you, because I remember you from a place where no memory exists, I honor you as a natural flow of my existence. I love you as I must, in honor of the soul you are, wanting nothing more than to love you in the only way I know how.

With Pure Truth,

Your Love

 

 

The Sun Within Me

My Love,

With each passing moment I am reminded of things. Special things. Things that embolden me. Things that enlighten me. Things that cause me to rise when rising seems impossible, and drive me onward when it seems I have no strength left to give.

I am reminded of what is within me. My soul seems like an evening sky, a darkened canvas full of space and time and remnants of moments past filled with promise of what is to come. I can sit in my present moment and look at the vast expanse of my soul, seeing stars that twinkled eons ago and things falling through the shroud of security around my heart. Like streaks of light those pebbles fall, and in wondrous moments of awe my eyes capture them and hold them dear even if only for a second.

You have shown me a great love within me, a love that lights that sky and changes things completely. The warm rays of light draw your name on my skin as the the black sky turns to blue, and life around me seems to jump with desire to live. I take my steps now seeing so much around me in this light, and I bask in the renewal of promise as each foot falls loving on ground made solid in knowing you.

The days pass mostly without you beside me, yet you are within me. I feel you when I touch the great mountain stones along the trail. I know you when I see the vastness of a world before me as I stand on the ridges of my journey. I’ve walked our beaches alone knowing you’d be there with me one day, and as forlorn as that aloneness may seem there is a lightness to knowing your presence exists somewhere where no foot can fall, no finger can touch, and no words will ever need be spoken.

I feel that one day I will not need to speak so much, or write so many words. The best stories of my life are yet to come, and they shall not be written with words but through my fingertips drawing lightly on your skin. The best truths of my life are yet to be spoken, but they shall not come through words but with my hand on your heart and my lips pressed against your own. The truest things I have ever done are yet to come, an extension of the truths I share with you now, and they will be a testament to this light I’ve found inside me. The light that whispers your name. The light that guides my way. The light whose gravity pulls me toward the greatest space I’ve ever stood in my life.

Before I met you, I knew you. Before I knew you, I felt you. But love you? There was no time before I loved you. I loved you the moment the Universe was created. That great explosion of truth sparked the moment when the light began to shine, and the dark sky knew its first breaking dawn. So blessed am I to have seen the Day in your embrace. So blessed am I to have been a student at that heart of your truth.

I will now seek you in my silence and kiss you there. Feel it, my love, and wait for the moment when our bodies can feel the truth of what we know.

Your Love.

Calling Out Your Name (A Poem)

There were moments
When I would walk in the Ocean's sands
Totally alone.
In my dizziness, in those seconds when I'd fall,
I could swear I heard a voice
Driving me onward,
Only saying your name.

Bloodied knees, 
Dripping life down the limbs of my existence,
The winter winds blowing as the Sun would rise,
Muddied, wet, frozen though I'd be,
I swear I'd feel a warmth comfort me,
Warming my heart to beat,
In the whisper of your name.

I had to lose almost everything,
To receive all I could ever want,
I had to nearly die,
To know how life was truly meant to be lived,
I had to tumble into silence 
Just to hear the calling of your name.

We've walked the same weathered beaches,
Heard the same shouting of the galls
Played in the same Ocean tides
All the while coming to the place,
Where we could walk together,
Just biding our loving sands of time.

What is left?
We build our hallowed sanctuaries,
Color pictures of our past with rays of blessed hope,
Holding hands, crossing covered bridges,
Writing moments of truth in books left 
For older versions of ourselves.

In this heart, beating in part for you,
Love unequivocal in the steeled will of a man,
He will walk many paths he fears for you,
Face fires of his mind that have scorched the earth before,
Quiet all the loudest whispers echoing from back then,
Just to hear the faintest whisper calling out your name.

I know no greater truth,
Than the waves of love pouring through my Soul,
When I hear your voice, 
When I feel your skin,
When I hold the flesh that is a mirror of my heart,
Or even in the quietest thought calling out your name.

We can see the footprints we've left in weathered sand,
Up ahead, still the foggy screen of what we fear beyond,
Yet my soul commits me to this path with you,
My heart knows no other purpose,
A prayer, uttered in your name.

To love you any other way,
Would be to lie to the God who brought us here,
There is that power surging through the cells of me,
A light beholded to no mind, 
A space that understands no limitations,
A wisdom that speaks a truth calling out your name.

The Alchemist in Me

What should I think? I try to think like all the others, overlooking things and turning them into nothing much. I try to shrug off certain things, things that used to be no big deal, nothing much, too little to care about.

But I can’t. I’ve lived in the shallow end of pools both big and small. I’ve tried to create nothing out of something, seeing wonders I’d pretend were ordinary. Once I could pretend snowy mountains and ocean sunrises inspired no great emotion in me. I thought that normal, and in that time and space of my life I just wanted to be “normal”.

Yet there is an alchemist in me. Something that wants to appreciate the things of this life that inspire me, both great and small. It could be just a word from my love, or a planet visible in the night sky, or a shooting star, or even just the way a calm lake can mirror the great artistry around it.

The little things that may be lead to some are gold in my heart. The way your eyes light up when you smile. The way your hair looks when you wake up in the morning. The way you look all curled up on the sofa, gray blanket hugging your form.

It could be something as small as the way you put on chapstick, or enter a room like a wondrous tornado on a mission. Perhaps it is in how I like finding your hair clips laying around, or even the way you load the dishwasher.

It could be the bigger things. The way you love those around you. Maybe it is the delicious way you cook a meal, and the warmth I feel as I take in every bite. Then there is the way I feel when your head finds its way to my chest, or your fingers snake around my own.

Life can’t get much bigger than all of these things. Trust me, when a man has starved for the air he breathes he never takes any breath, big or small, for granted. He wants them all. He even wants those moments between breaths because they remind him of absence he has known. Especially when he knows the next breath is coming.

There is a wonder to such an appreciation. I have also learned to appreciate the absence of things big and small. That absence reminds me of the beauty of their return. It allows me to flow in the appreciation of things I love, of things I pray never leave for long.

So, on this day I sit in appreciation for the experience of things big and small, and for the alchemist in me that creates great waves of gratitude, appreciation, and attention to all things of love big and small. Yes, it matters. Yes, it always will.

No Idea

I had no idea
What I was doing
When I found this love with you.
I had no clue
How fast I'd fall
or how deep the well had grown.

Yet here I am
Still falling, discovering
Crying tears of joy in the Sunshine
Begging love for your hand
Feeling you in the empty air
Knowing you in the space we share.

I had no idea
What was in store
When destiny's doors opened.
I could not have guessed
That first embrace
I'd pray would never end.

Yet here I am
Still holding you,
In a dream I never wish to end.
Here I am,
Wishing upon every star ever born
And thanking them all the same.

See, I had no idea
What I was doing
But I'm glad I did it all.
I had no clue
How fast I'd fall
When I fell in love with you.

Home

Home
 
Your words attracted me.
Your eyes enthralled me.
Your heart captured me.
Your soul reminded me.
 
I am home.
 
When the waves break by our feet,
When the mountain Sun warms our skin,
In the spaces we share that are between them both,
Feel the truth.
 
We are home.
 
When challenges come our way,
Old ways of thinking sprout boulders where none should be,
Let us take love’s hammer to those stones,
Turn them to the very dust we use.
 
To build our home.
 
In the funny way we tell our tales,
As older versions of ourselves,
Let us gaze lovingly at what we’ve done,
And let laughter echo.
 
In our home.
 
So blessed are we who’ve found our soul
In another’s loving touch,
So reminded shall we be in every drop of life we have,
We have not sacrificed a thing,
For the treasure we have found,
Following the map only written in our hearts,
A spinning dial on the compass of our souls,
Has led us to that place where we were born to be.
 
And we are home.
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