Love’s Exquisite Fire

love has no name
love has no words
it is not contained
in shadow and light
it slides through our fingers
pours through our hearts
kisses us deeply
into this day dream of love

a dream of infinite heartbreak
love cannot be found
or lost
we are this ballet of tears
where joy and sorrow merge

there are no words for this love
this love not sung
sings itself


it seems that we are stories with stories pouring though us
in the shape of hearts and tears and blood



it was my barbed wire necklace that pierced my heart
blood soaked my shadow
as it waltzed with the dark
pouring empty foot falls
into a two step of falling echoes
twirling into a dream scape of love
soaked shadows
dissolving into light

time dissolves into the falling of tears
tears dissolve into air
air dissolves into space
space dissolves into a vacancy
without proportion
or memory
this magic show of infinite proportions
explodes into
not even nothing

the calliope plays itself
there are no ghostly hands to hold the notes
no mouths to hold the vowels
no hearts to hold this love
that never was
nor will ever be

love a daydream of infinite heartbreak
where joy and sorrow merge
there are no words for this love
this love not sung
sings itself



love casts her spell
into the shadow of moon
full of forgotten days
and imaginary tomorrows

she is the sigh of wind
and an ever clear day
a mirage hovering
over the long road ahead

you cannot reach her
you cannot grasp her
she casts no shadow
and is too near
to be seen

she is your longing
and your fear
and the goal
no one can attain

she has no center
nor edges
she is every letter
in this sentence

how many missives did I write to her
every sigh
every tear
every touch of aloneness
sang her name
and every letter came back
unopened

I kept looking for a clue
inside the envelope
inside my heart
inside the day
inside the love

without a name
she is nothing
there are no things
under their names



night wind slips into the folds of dawn
in love with its own hush
origami clouds sail through my reflection
love reveals her face
even in sorrow
even in joy

love dances in her gown of sky
and pours down my window
tears write themselves
gems on the glass
reflect the morning
as it unfolds into day

fingers lightly caress the keyboard
like lovers dancing
a love song birthed from
and into
a river of tears
every word is the first
and last
kiss
of life touching
itself

sublime heartache of life
of love
where is the separation?
only in these lines
does love emerge



moon sails into this poem
every letter a piece of reflected light
scattering diamonds on the garden pond
skimming unfathomable depths
falling from unknowable heights
love's echo is on fire
burning through the hole in your heart
she whispers your name
and you cannot find yourself

dancing in the dark
moonlight on the water
fire and wet your blood
heart bleeding with all this love
that has no name nor number
nor place
nor time
nor costume
only this spinning mirage
that we are
falling into each other
disappearing into love's silent song

a kiss without sides
losing ourselves
and finding ourselves in this touch
this dance
this ballet of light and shadow
enunciating our names
every word a world
every letter a poem

a shooting star
love burns itself
there is no ground to reach
nor sky to fall through
nor heart that requires filling
or emptying
love flows through itself
an ocean without sky
or rocky bottom
or sandy beach

who walks the distant shore
calling your name?
who waits for your response?
it is only echoes blooming
and receding
the tides are not contained
in these scattered shells
yet you can hear love sing your name
as the words disappear
into soundless echos
rippling through
this ocean of love


it is this unknowing you long for
but it cannot be known
you are these very words dissolving into themselves




this thingless-ness is obvious but it cannot be seen or found or touched or held or known.
this is the oneness that you vaguely remember and long for
but it has never gone away

as it is not an it or thing it has no measurement
no time nor dimension
all measurement is made up
all division is learned
before there were words
before there was a before
there was no knowing
there were no things
a web of thought has seemingly divided pure space
that has no space
words have seemingly created things out of a void
that has no emptiness
or fullness

echoes without a source
voices that cannot be recalled
a light in your night time dream
colors in the day time dream
swirl and explode into shapes
ghostly echoes that are known only with memory

we are memories of love's echo
resounding across a canyon of echoes
lost in their own sound
a chorus of one
of two
of many
of none

without thought there are no things... not even names for ourselves... without a running commentary we have no story
there is no one to have a story
I love that I am a story
...a fairy tale of love finding herself in the storybook of love...
I am pages of a water color dream book dissolving into the ocean of love

Beyond sky

Sky without sky 

Beyond freedom

Freedom without freedom 

Beyond space 

Space without space 

Beyond beyond

Emptiness 

Without emptiness 

Without here without there 

Without time

Or direction

Not never 

Or forever 

Or now

love has no hands to hold you

no arms to embrace you

she has no voice to sing 

nor ears to listen to her song

she is these very words

spilling down the street

reflecting a million tears

galaxies of raindrops

seem to catch the morning 

sliding down the window

I can see my reflection

hovering in the rain

love requires no heart in which to dwell

as she spins her magic carpet with tales of madness

and tales of sorrow

unravelling like all love letters

into swirls and squiggles 

a sumptuous calligraphy penned with disappearing ink

bleeding into all words

all songs

all hearts

she is a song without words

or melodies

or silence

she neither moves nor is still

she has no light nor shadow

but arises in this very touch

where twoness slides into oneness

and oneness falls into twoness

this kiss that cannot be kissed

with words

that cannot be sung

kisses itself

hearts on fire

flowers burning

this dream of love bleeds

into its own colors

abandoned 

suspended in moonlight

washed of all substance

there are no reds or oranges

nor heat to burn

in love's magnificent fire

without letters

there are no edges

transparency has no layers

to weave into patterns

and catch the flowing

blooming and erasing itself

summer slides into winter

leftover rainbows are pummeled by wind

there are no colors

to paint your heart

love lost

love found

slides into pools of reflections 

memory has cast your story into endless seas

water color echoes

pour your heart into sky

skimming the vastness

without hands

without eyes

shimmering iridescence

cannot hold

or see itself

ships have no wheel or rudder

nor surface to skim on

dream slides into dream

light and dark erase each other

in this very kiss

tears leave no footprints

nothing does not hide 

this dance of love's sublime sorrow

cascades through its own fire

through the wetness of our eyes 

love blooms

and recedes

we are this boundless ocean

where love flows through love

Love burns in its own exquisite fire 

this echo land dreamscape 

flows into and through itself

and I, a container of words,

dissolved into ocean's song

ocean of love has no edges

no inside nor out

it spills into itself

without emptiness

or fullness

floating in echoes of moonlight

there is no distance

between you and the moon

there is no in between

the in between

it is all reflections of reflections shimmering

a dance of light

without light

what is a poem without words?

what is the sea without water?

what is the wet in wet

the taste in taste

the love

in love

love sings your name...

and you feel your lips 

your tongue 

your heart mouth the words...

vowels held in the roundness of silence

explode through the teeth of consonants

like this, you say

love sings

just 

like 

this

love has no hands to hold you

no arms to embrace you

she has no voice to sing 

nor ears to listen to her song

she is these very words

spilling down the street

reflecting a million tears

galaxies of raindrops

seem to catch the morning 

sliding down the window

I can see my reflection

hovering in the rain

love requires no heart in which to dwell

as she spins her magic carpet with tales of madness

and tales of sorrow

unravelling like all love letters

into swirls and squiggles 

a sumptuous calligraphy penned with disappearing ink

bleeding into all words

all songs

all hearts

she is a song without words

or melodies

or silence

she neither moves nor is still

she has no light nor shadow

but arises in this very touch

where twoness slides into oneness

and oneness falls into twoness

this kiss that cannot be kissed

with words

that cannot be sung

kisses itself

it is obvious always that there are no things to flow together or apart... 

that there are no selves or others to kiss to dance to walk along the dusty trail and bathe in sunset looming... 

yet this boundless ocean of love bathes in itself... 

long ago and time in-between the lines erased themselves

sea crashed into sky and subsumed all horizons of other better more and next... 

with no ground or path to walk along and no where to go there was no one to lose her feet 

her lips 

her tongue 

her heart...

The story of enlightenment is a beautiful story that falls through all ideas of enlightenment... as the story continues much like before 

Before and after sumptuous stories that seem to create a wow now.... but there is no one reading the story anymore as it writes itself...  only in the story of oneness swallowing twoness swallowing oneness does it seem to appear that there is an awareness of aliveness, of awareness, of this underlying wow-ness... that seems to provide a backbeat to the symphony of all imaginary this and that. This rhythm of life dancing to a call and answer love song in the great divide, the Grand Canyon of early morning mists that seem to obscure colors but dissolve into a particular clarity of simply life doing itself looking and feeling like anything at all... all of this apparent happening marvelous beyond measure ...and although there are no selves or others or endless seas or vast undulating skies 

nor you nor me nor love... this is not the end of love

...It is the beginning....

We exist as beliefs and preferences that no one has... a nakedness that no one wears... no hope or fear or need of a never arising next... and yet a beautiful longing remains 

For this just as it seems to appear 

A wonderful ache that is joy and sorrow and awe and love... a warm current in a boundless ocean falling through its own warmth... 

light poring through light 

Space falling through space 

love poring through love... 

when you and all thingness is known to be illusion 

Illusion is illusion

Not even nothing is real 

Or false... 

but 

You are beautiful 

And I love you 

And that is enough

what are words when all love letters have been returned

unopened

the lines and squiggles faded into constellations

reflecting on the waves

crashing 

indecipherable calligraphy strewn like seaweed on the beach

where I waited for my own echo

to return

where I wondered if I would ever find the love

I longed for

and bathed in this longing

ocean sang her lullaby

as I rested in love's unfathomable arms

when the sea crashed into sky

and the horizon untied itself

there was no safe harbor

nor shore to reach

all the knots unraveled as

time reached the end of its own timeline

I was a slipknot of water

in water

a snapshot of wind

made of wind

pages of empty shadows bloomed

and wilted

colors slid off the mirror

shattering this illusion of infinite reflections

without a source

echoes had no sound nor singer

the symphony had no conductor

nor music

light faded into light

the death of all tomorrows

erased the dream of yesterday

an arrow of love's heart magic

eviscerated all ideas of love

what is this love without love?

what is the sea without waves

without drops

without wetness?

seeing through the illusion 

is illusion 

all that happens is that it is recognized, by no one, that it is all illusion, even seeing through the illusion

all these love letters

are never sent

or answered

yet my heart knows the songs

listens to the echos

recognizes the love

that has no words

that has no heart

to hold it

cast upon a liquid love dream

words are the ripples

poems are the waves

crashing

on a shoreless sea

limb by limb the tree is climbed

your body is eaten

when you find no sky to reach

no top

or bottom

nothing on which to stand

no feet to walk

no voice to sing

the scaffolding collapses

it was only a lover's dream

that there was another place to be

a kiss that was waiting...

an emptiness that could be filled

your very nakedness unravels

this cloak of emptiness dissolves

you find this river of tears led nowhere

it is layers of transparency sliding through fluid empty spaciousness

without space

or light

or emptiness

how can I walk when there is no one walking

how can I dance when there is no music

nor dance floor

nor anyone to dance?

how can I love when there is no one to give love

or receive it?

I do not know or care how this lover's dream appears

knowing always that there are no sides

I constantly fall through them

and dissolve 

into you

dawn erases my reflection in the window

time lost her shadow

in this immeasurable vastness

empty eyes

empty echoes

emptiness without sound

or silence

or emptiness

life dreams itself

colors bloom and play

golden finches and pearl grey doves swoop down onto the feeders

pale pink clouds fade into sky

wind leaves no footprint

on the frozen pond

ocean of love pours through itself 

through our fingers 

our mouths 

our lips 

our hearts

writing our love songs in a twisting twining melody of unfathomable beauty 

this unutterable mystery

sings itself