Held Close Like a Talisman
Don Hynes
We have rituals of innocence,
when we dress and undress,
how we lean toward each other in the night
and most of all how we’re still in the morning,
letting the quiet remain, the dark slowly fade
as we pull back the curtains looking east
to feel what may be coming
and see each other in that light.
We once saw our lives in negative,
thinking if we got the shading right
in our inner darkroom
we’d have life how we wanted
but after a while the abstraction fell away
and we had the simpler choices
of kindness and an open look,
no disguises, no giving with one hand
and taking with the other,
letting go the false sacrament
we’d learned to worship,
the idol gathering dust in some attic box
while we lend ourselves to each other,
your face a morning treasure
discovered in the dissolving dark
and held close like a talisman
while the light begins to gather.
http://donhynes.com/blog/?p=1492