Guardian

I got up this morning and it was cold outside. I actually am home not feeling the best. When I found this poem, which I had forgotten about, it reminded me of times I’ve played both roles for someone. I’ve been the individual that has denied or ‘played like I did not want someone to watch over me,’ and I’ve certainly been the person who wants someone to watch over me. I believe there’s something watching over us all. I believe that someone is sometimes each other. Sometimes we’re annoyed with it and other times we just want to be taken into the arms of someone and held. I believe we never stop wanting someone to hold us, no matter how old or independent we get. We live in a universe where love is a major energy and ‘holding someone,’ or ‘allowing someone to hold you,’ is a big piece of that energy. Often I walk around, especially during colder days and I see animals or people and I wish we lived in a world where I could just hold them because you can see it on their face how badly they need it. Sometimes I walk around and feel the same way, I just want someone to stop and hold me and recognize that I’m feeling something. I don’t know what it was, the animals out in the cold, the fact that I wasn’t feeling well this morning, but this poem just jumped right out at me. I hope there is a time when we can just embrace people when in need. It’d be a fascinating world if people were able to let their vulnerabilities down enough to allow this and to give this, so that’s why I chose this poem for this morning.

Guardian

When the canary sang more furious,
when I saw you there like a fish slipped out of God’s nests,
I was hiding among skeletons on that pier,
perched like a private eye fixed in a key hole
nothing could keep my eyes off you.

Through that small window, there’s not much I could share.
I dreamed of spring evenings when you’d invite me
to feel your love.

I hushed mumbles in that cold fog
and covered you when you were asleep in early winter.
The starving know “ache”better than any other species,
and I knew I’d go hungry a thousand times through
if it meant feeding you the little sips of love I scavenged.

The storms raged, in the distance beyond the doors I could open
the sound of eternal nocturnal feet shuffled past,
so I curled my body around you
trying to comfort and warm you like mumbled mantras and
childhood nursery rhymes.

Songs to keep you safe.
Songs to keep warm blood and that soft pounding heart continue to ache.
I have emptied too fast at times too,
but, in you, I can hear my name.
In you, small gasps that remind how badly we want air,
how determined our lungs can be
to take the risks of inhales and exhales

From lilac to lilac, from whiperpool to it’s song on the prairie,
I know you’re not sure you want to feel me yet.
Nevertheless, I turn away from abandoning you
and refuse to greet my own glance reflected in poor light.

I could hold you for the rest of my days
imagining one day you choose to walk alongside me
after breakfast
scuffling sagebrush and heavy due,
the wet collecting on our feet,
you squeezing my hand tighter
understanding, “this is how I love you,”

like water always there to absorb you,
whatever state you might be in.