Final Invitation

This thing you call Love,
This thinning layer of quicksand
Running into widening chasms
Between grinding tectonic plates-
This is what informed my mind
This, that shaped itself into dragons
This, in pursuit of which I fell
Into a blessedly final circle
Of ever-growing grace, of protection
From even my own jagged visions.

It squats in its small dark tunnel
Sucking into itself light and life
Vomits out acid-tongued curses
Of contempt for all that escape it-
Each year shaping what might have been
Into fungus forms of self-replicating
Discomfort, self-perpetuating blindness
To the warm, affection of the sunlit
World still spinning, singing, dancing
Around, above, even below to its own bright music.

Out here children laugh and race the sun.
In the open air even crones and magi dance.
They’re easy to see, easy to hear and even join.
They’ll have everyone who can see them
They’ll celebrate anyone who can still smile.
Judge them and they run…