After All This<\/b>
\nby Richard Jackson<\/i><\/p>\n
After all this love, after the birds rip like scissors
\nthrough the morning sky, after we leave, when the empty
\nbed appears like a collapsed galaxy, or the wake of
\ndisturbed air behind a plane, after that, as the wind turns
\nto stone, as the leaves shriek, you are still breathing
\ninside my own breath. The lighthouse on the far point
\nstill sweeps away the darkness with the brush of an arm.
\nThe tides inside your heart still pull me towards you.
\nAfter all this, what are these words but mollusk shells
\na child plays with? What could say more than the eloquence
\nof last night’s constellations? or the storm anchored by
\nits own flashes behind the far mountains? I remember
\nthe way your body wavers under my touch like the northern
\nlights. After all this, I want the certainty of hidden roots
\nspreading in all directions from their tree. I want to hear
\nagain the sky tangled in your voice. Some nights I can
\nhear the footsteps of the stars. How can these words
\never reveal the secret that waits in their sleeping light?
\nThe words that walk through my mind say only what has
\nalready passed. Beyond, the swallows are still knitting
\nthe wind. After a while, the smokebush will turn to fire.
\nAfter a while, the thin moon will grow like a tear in a curtain.
\nUnder it, a small boy kicks a ball against the wall of
\na burned out house. He is too young to remember the war.
\nHe hardly knows the emptiness that kindles around him.
\nHe can speak the language of early birds outside our window.
\nSomeday he will know this kind of love that changes
\nthe color of the sky, and frees the earth from its moorings.
\nSometimes I kiss your eyes to see beyond what I can imagine.
\nSometimes I think I can speak the language of unborn stars.
\nI think the whole earth breathes with you. After all this,
\nthese words are all I have to say what is impossible to think,
\nwhat shy dreams hide in the rafters of my heart, because
\nthese words are only a form of touch, only tell you I have no life
\nthat isn’t yours, and no death you couldn’t turn into a life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After All This by Richard Jackson After all this love, after the birds rip like scissors through the morning sky, after we leave, when the empty bed appears like a collapsed galaxy, or the wake of disturbed air behind a plane, after that, as the wind turns to stone, as the leaves shriek, you are … Continue reading “I want to burn with passion, not regret”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[128],"class_list":["post-3718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3718\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}