Sunset on a Sunday Father’s Day
and I am spent, sliced and diced
by life’s need to decimate
what small wholeness
has been shaped
in lean decades.

As skin burns, my soul expands –
hot springs bubble up and
overflow only to be
swallowed by cracked,
hard, thirsty ground
of earth’s sorrow.

Outside I am same parched ground,
dying beneath a scorching sun.
Within me, there is nothing
but piercing, awful empty,
shrill, screaming void;
hunger for you.

Tomorrow: joyous Summer Solstice
that interminable longest day
without you, without cool
of springtime rain
without a single
hour of relief.

Alone, (beyond vast wasteland
of remembering what it is
to feel anything but),
I think I’ve died
to joy and pain;
still, hot tears.

Tonight, a warm wind came
uninvited into my kitchen
and bore my heart away.
Perhaps it is gift of God,
this vacuous space,
these burning times.

Wide-eyed, standing in shock,
I watch flicker of last light
sucked up by horizon
but know fire will rage
by morning even
as I burn.