an odyssey just here ................ [draft]

Black Odyssey, Romare Bearden

He is at sea.
she is on land.
the irony of her tidepool
feeding on savanna, drawing down seeds
as his horizons grow dark
with stars cast on slack tide
oceans flat and full of mirages

at sea, or at sky?

sand collects at the edges
(his dry kisses)
where young red crabs crawl out
searching under the wide moon
for an easy current

the square-rig of deep ocean
planes, sails slack
and hanging down
waiting to breathe...
(salt on the tongue and in the eyes)

she closes her eyes
reaches out
like a whale she throws her life
against the current

neither the first woman to wait on a man,
nor will she be the last.
cut your tongue and open your eyes,
you are not the first to journey,
albatross slung under your chin,
and longed-for high grasses hallucinated
at your shoulders (her hands, her scent).

swim or hike, traveler,
back to your own bood-bearing chest
(she does not let slip a single drop).

Works in progress... continue.

"The moon and the stars were the gifts she gave..."
                                          - Johnny Cash

Swoon, Brooklyn Museum 2014

The sun and the moon,
bodies of power, both:
he warms her heart,
her face reflects his fire.

She smiles because he watches,
though she wait the days to hold his gaze.
He shines because it is his to do...
creating savanna from stone.

She is the reason
he lives at night:
to come home to her arms.
She holds him as none other:
he will only warm her, luminous shy rock that she be.

In his embrace, she is
made a heart-beating stone:
a lover finally, a mother firmly,
she brings the tide to his warm shores.