Such Deliberate Loveliness: Collected Love Poems of Paul Hina 1997-2006

religious

  whispers when tradition breathes

  into puddles of a dizzy drunken how

  (whom words can not know) regaining

  perfection in the unknown language

  of a duet

  62

  between then and now which

  once prevailed a space is no

  space and every then is now

  and now a then

  but no instant does not come

  or go without coming to go or

  going to come yet we are neither

  coming nor going

  only in accepting the instant

  spaces can we come to go into

  now

  63

  a line perhaps is drawn covering

  great wide space with painted stones

  that from roots of fragile portraits

  scatter and distort forms that move

  into the shapes your magnificent

  intense body creates in each possible

  dissection of seconds

  those stones however fragile in

  their immense spreading across the

  acres of my mind are shrines to

  every possible laughter you construct

  in this museum of memory even in the

  shadow of your dimmest gesture coming

  true

  and one particular now sculpture

  uncertain of its divinity crumbles

  into the reckless debris of any

  movement yet to occur staining only

  inches of what art has since burst in

  the flow of what you had just performed

  in the simplicity of five lines connected

  to palm swimming through the fields of

  hair in the sweet color of home

  and yet the gravel maybe now stirring

  again carving winter breath into a world

  going spring(even though december stones

  often represent a dying thing) while rising

  dawn is stunned by the sun in your eyes

  64

  i picture you in the middle of this

  place i see disturbing the wind to the

  point of breaking under your stare that

  wrestles even necessity to its very

  knees begging for a mercy swim inside

  your eyes causing the breezes to break

  apart at your convenience for a cooling

  off of your sweet warm face placing a

  series of slight changes to the color of

  your precious skin stretched directly by

  the fingers of newborn vanilla caressing

  your already perfect hair to jump just in

  the right places where your scalp tickles

  your mouth to embrace each smell of laughing

  candy to carry each chocolate strand to

  flight falling all the way down your heavenly

  neck's curve playing hills for all who admire

  the shape of one more reason to wake into a

  morning that tastes of clowns

  and you move softly closer in small patient

  steps with legs dangling never touching

  ground in their glide massaging hips to

  approach the always simple comfort of my

  embrace while this rapid heart stomps shovels

  of life to my head barely drinking some dizzy

  you to spin me dancing into the scent an

  evening with your hands plays with purpose

  in my years being young and brand new with

  you

  65

  climbing through the circles of

  your twilight sight drains all

  my next life's sleep to hang

  below a memory that your

  looking-at-me eyes caused in

  my guts when i was able to

  stretch those erratic trails of

  disfigured pictures so near to

  light that you might represent

  almost tears swallowing more

  future hope of touch inside your

  life world of flesh embodied by

  those orbs echoing sound like

  the soft praise eyelashes create

  when you shut out my insatiable

  waiting

  and all those daylight wishes i

  hide under when you, as close

  as truth, move my mind from

  middle sprint

  these wishes get lost in that last

  circle racing to keep you from

  darkening the night with your

  tired lids so heavily covering sky's

  most precise circle of green day

  and i'll climb through each hollow

  ball of left behind light to ignite

  as many more memories as takes

  to fall gracefully into that place

  where making sleep is finished

  in your eyes

  resting somewhere familiar and

  away

  66

  only the poppies' scent that at once

  embraced her radiant napping curves

  can remember how calm her whole face

  shines with that moist sweet mask of

  heather that naturally gathers itself

  to pour from her mouth to easily

  consume the wind when its breath

  kisses each exhale with those discreet

  smiling lips

  and from that scented garden flows

  the water painting its natural spring

  landscape to quickly dry in the humble

  mystery of finding what color glows as

  green to sparkle something like her

  waking eyes that simply wash over the

  stream to flow into lighted dream

  and even on days of disquiet weather

  when the water freezes over what life

  she has fed it with her little voice

  there she will be to open up her

  hair letting out each strand of

  soft silent sunlight to reveal

  where the flowers roam in the

  winter

  and when each nuance unfolds itself

  from her body and every whisper that

  graces the air emerges from beneath

  her flesh the world will be left a

  better nature to walk through

  knowing that she exists in each

  flower

  and flows with every water

  unrelenting

  undying

  67

  just beyond twilight hangs a moonless

  bloom swollen like a tear approaching

  tumble from its tender perch called

  horizon to allow for one more sweeping

  light to fall into my lazy brown eyes

  that dangle suddenly still at this young

  beautiful thing swinging from a rope

  tied to a single plank of modestly aging

  wood that hangs from the extended arm of

  tree waiting to be held

  seventy summer degrees breeze the hand

  of this tree open into sway testing its

  subtle strength that measures the weight

  of her perfectly patient body in tree's

  palm carefully clutching limbs with her

  gentle always fingers while tree squeezes

  tight its power protecting not to crush

  her lovely body's art for the attainment

  of another singular immeasurable smile

  her toes point with each lean ankle

  splitting synchronized in motion so as to

  swing her free from the dirty dust that

  is kicked full in the air as she eases

  ever closer toward the sky laughing all

  the way into clouds

  and the tear swells shut as the bloom falls

  without moon that wipes away twilight only

  after it reflects he
r sweet taste of child

  savors it

  believes it

  68

  when her face opens up to alive in the

  morning the roots that are her feet sink

  further into toes that shiver from stillness

  just as her body starts again to grow

  only god and desire know how she makes a

  manic out of me when i feel the inner skies

  of my face trickle nerves through mind and

  spine like nowhere rain moving in the knowledge

  of the elegance she portrays upon every half

  sleeping turn of head to spray her falls of

  hair on my once thirsty flesh

  i would tell her i love her special if not in

  constant act of question when every splendid

  stirring of almost awake throws me asking if

  she is someone's there

  and if her not being here means she must exit

  bed for better worlds then dreams will crumble

  into sleep as joy leans her hips treading legs

  like water as she swims so perfectly out of view

  and when lying alone in the floating beside of

  pillow sheets under her old warm body blankets i

  can linger lazily for days sustaining on her scent

  which will direct at me always the depth of her

  blue infinity

  69

  one hundred revolutions turns my life around

  a huge massive light of cylinder innerspace

  from which can be seen many absolute chambers

  containing either dust or diamonds held by my

  breath waiting for some visual clarity instead

  of these shining rooms of bottled tranquility

  curving imaginations

  these bottles feed new lights with moments

  something like air bells blowing surprise

  trumpets on cold dry autumn illusions exploring

  things such as forever or her hand that time

  brushing my hair from my face

  and in just clicks some mind with rooms opening

  turning whatever dust to diamonds exploding lights

  that remind one that memories sit so quietly full

  of life like children seeming to be asleep or how it

  feels to pass the instant color of her touch to

  someone simply through words

  and i just write things down around these revolutions

  just so that someone might any day remember to hold

  brightness so deep in their cupped hands that opening

  them gives better reason to laugh anyone spinning inside

  another's kaleidoscope

  a dozen roses for sarah

  first rose

  we have had little time for confessing

  the inconsistent nature of want for no

  other reason than its lack of appropriate

  home when we touch

  i will taste many new rejuvenations

  as our life treads puddles in further

  time and yet your lips easily can part

  my jaws to explain sunrises with the

  soft elegance of a secret somewhere

  being told in that delicate symphonic

  voice where you hold the breath that

  refreshes the water within me

  and where my