Savoring a future that may yet hold out for us

The Living To Do
For Vyvian

There is so much life to reconcile. We remind ourselves
that there is yet much more living of it to do. We know this
and laugh anyway looking back at what we cannot change,
wouldn’t even if we could. In your presence, I blush easily.
I must be utterly vulnerable to the agate gaze of your probing
eyes. Before you, my blood rushes like reef fish teeming at
some coral surface and all my predatory hiding is revealed.

This lioness will not devour me and I sense that. Your smile
betrays a tender hunger and I am consumed, not by teeth,
but by lips shaped like crescent moons waiting to fill with
rain. You set stars ablaze in the constellation that fell to
the ground and rose again to make up the soul I call my
own. Your fire sets to my water and together all things
become possible: stream, storm, steam, sense, space.

These are the elementals of love everywhere, even here,
like this, sitting together with our mouths savoring a future
that may yet hold out for us. “A passion for the pale,” said
the sign over your shoulder. And the lion shall stand with the
lamb as I will cherish both fleece and fearlessness, drown
amid the rich provinces of your breaching embrace. There
is so much life to reconcile as there is yet much living to do.

Joseph Gallo
March 3, 2009

Territories forever closed

Strangers As We Go

We leave so much unfinished. Most places will never know the
trod of our feet, the vanished architecture of our singular wander.
As your lips will not know mine, your limbs shall remain territories forever closed to me, tributaries never undertaken to the summit of their precious source. Lives intersect for the briefest crossings, pass and diverge like mighty falls around the smallest stones.

We leave so much unfinished. We archive all our worst intentions
and shelve the best. As we seek to know ourselves we make strangers as we go, each one a pilgrim embraced in another feckless devotion. Your laugh echoes in my imagination of it, ricochets off the moments we left entombed in misconception, possibilities run slick with a pale rush of menses that carried only the nutrient of a rich emptiness.

Forgive me my footless missteps. Excuse the paradox that rocked your spine before settling somewhere outside my hips. Pardon all that remains yet unpardonable and set yourself a place at the table of true forgiveness where bread breaks evenly, wine seldom stains the cloth, knives pierce cleanly through the meat, manners rest heavy and weary against all we leave half-eaten, all that remains unfinished.

Joseph Gallo
March 14, 2009

A destination never to be arrived at

Meditation On The Laws Of Allowance

You enter where you enter, head bowed just enough
to pass without striking notice or scraping a threshold
of dismissal. Each life is a temple and to check one’s
feet before entering is to free the debris of a journey
no longer being undertaken. Destiny is nothing if not a
destination never to be arrived at. It is no different here.

She sits like a figure in contemplation, musing something
silent and secret, something not given to examination
by forces outside her own nature. Regard this then as
sacrosanct and take your place quietly, with permission.
It is the right thing to do. Do this and nothing else without
her grant of endowment. Be still now; listen with intent.



You may marvel at her inwardness, the scope of her descent
into all that matters to make her who she is, in spite of who you
imagine her to be. Allow for this. You cannot know the whole
story as she cannot retell it. Yours is to come to know your own,
as far as possible, learn it, as far as possible, speak it, as far as
possible. In this you are kindred tellers of an unfolding tale.

Would you have it any other way than rich with the mead of
mystery and unknowingness? Would you know all things to
but be reminded that there are things you can never know?
Would you sit her temple and think of brassworn spires piercing
the jungletop, overrun with the rootwork of all it took to build
them into beautiful ruin as they now stand in rich corrosion?

So enter as you will enter. Mind your head and feet. Know,
beforehand, which are which. Pass with grace conferred by
her merest nod or smile. Embrace abundance as enough. She
will find you a place among her sagas, or not. Be content in
your role as minor legend that, while not flashing swords across
an embellished sun, you are nevertheless a vital bearer of the pearl.

Joseph Gallo
March 8, 2009