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Robert Jacoby
Dear Love
You are lush
like the Caribbean island jungle that June morning.
Remember?
We left our mountaintop retreat early, children sleeping,
to hike the ancient trail.
The pre-dawn air foretold rain,
but we were undeterred.
We entered the forest's throated canopy,
fearful of our muted footfalls and eyes all around.
Eyes of creatures and spirits and gods.
We journeyed up and up and up
to where the Ancient Indians carved
their deceased into the rock
above the silent pool's waterline—
petroglyphs—
turning them into mirrored gods or
the dead looking on from the other side
at the top of their sacred space,
a waterfall.
It seemed to be our destination
from one thousand years ago.
We arrived soaked from the storm,
marked our triumph with a token of love.
Their gathered gods watched us kiss.
We listened to the mountain breathe,
and It listened to us,
our mammalian hearts ensconced in the rocks
inseparable.
You sheathed my wound.
We became waterfalls
cascading rainbows
mists
stories
told and untold.
I spoke in tongues.
The reflected spirit-gods confirmed our resurrection:
Time is firm.
Time is bible-paper thin.
Time is our precious element.
It won't abide.
©2009 by Robert Jacoby
Robert Jacoby
pursues happiness in Maryland. His most recent poems have appeared in
2 River View and the Vocabula Review.
His first novel, There Are Reasons Noah Packed No Clothes,
is seeking a publisher, as is his nonfiction book, Escaping from Reality
Without Really Trying: 40 Years of High Seas Travels and Lowbrow Tales,
a memoir-by-interview of a 61-year-old, life-long merchant seaman
re-counting his fantastic, hilarious, and politically incorrect exploits
(excerpts have been published in The Oregon Literary Review
and Alice Blue Review.) He is working on another novel,
Dusk and Ember, and a collection of poetry, Stars Fall Nude,
from which this poem is taken.
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