Will it (2009)

Will it be possible
for desire to change into something deeper
something sustainable over a lifetime?
for the electric current of skin on skin
to become a lasting current of the deep heart?
for the passion of eyes
to become the passion of action
renewed repeatedly in listening
in simple presence that can hold another’s pain?
for the language of love to be more than words
or more than compassion or more than skin against skin
but a lifelong gift?

I know it can because it has.
Although that gift and that love are muted
by distance both temporal and physical
still her name brings it back.
So will yours. Differently because you are different
better because the passion was deeper if shorter lived.

Will is a odd word
so many meanings; one- a legacy, the things left me
(all of which I would trade for another day
with the one of whose will I am beneficiary)
or two- will is an act of mind, or three- a question.
Questions always, why life is as it is only clear retrospectively.

‘Will it’, removed from being a question,
becomes my will, my necessity for this;
the act of mind to create some space
where my heart is still connected with yours, in a new form,
in a way that frees you rather than binds you
that enables you to find your life’s dreams
freed from the limitations, however wonderful
(and they were) of passion, the legacy of moments never to be lost, of desire,
into something for which I have yet no name. An inheritance of your smile
the memory of your touch recalled with warmth and not pain.
But I will (have that name) if only that it is your name.
I will. You must help me discover it if you so will. Will you?