To pen or not to Pen?

Penning you would mean imprisoning you.
Not penning you would mean imprisoning me.

Oh Child O’ mine, will you find your way?
For the box has sharp edges,
Demanding to split you,
Divide your love.

But forget not:

Split love is no love at all.

Two cannot love,
For neither you are nor I am.

Neither is penning,
Nor imprisoning.

I love you.
I love.
Love.

Who is a poet?

Twisty words, gnarly structure,
Juxtaposed against lulling and luring —

Scaffolding of metaphors with wit seeping in.
Precise is the tone,
Teasing, the language.

Layers unfold as the same tunes strike
Within the reader and the poet.

Alas! A surprise!

For who is truly a poet if not her words?
If not her metaphors?
If not her teasing?

And what is truly poetry without surprise?

Is it even possible for the same tunes
To arise within the reader and the poet?

For what does the reader know of the rhythm
That drove the poet away from her cozy bed?

Surprise assumes discord.
Poetry assumes harmony.

There is no poetry without surprise.

That which twists familiarly,
Does not twist at all.

Twisting assumes surprise.

What is poetry without twisty words?
And who is a poet without poetry?

In Search of Solitude

The arching branch innocuously bobs
Under the guidance of the wind.

Fanned-out, finger-like leaves
Brush an invisible canvas —
Masterpiece after masterpiece blowing away.

The benefactor of the bobbing
Receives what is hers.

This echo chamber of bobbing and brushing and masterpieces
Reminds me of my search for solitude,
Invigoratingly disturbed by the crowds.

My shaking fingers fill out canvas after canvas.
My bobbing wrist knows not of the tears at the tip of my pen.

Bobbing, brushing, masterpieces —
The benefactor receives what is hers.

no water ever has asked

Water asked the thirsty barren basin:

"How may I caress you?
For we have been long apart."

Dry and dusty, rocks and reefs
Cried out in fractal scatter and heaves.

"Oh lover mine, worry not of overestimation.
You are to touch me as the lethal strike of a warhead —
Piercing through my dryness,
Invigorating my solitude.

For it is I who have lamented to blue skies.
For it is I who have painted the canvas with white.

Where do you gather the courage to ask questions?
Why must the painter answer?
Is my art not as loud as the thundering sky?

A question pulsating naïveté —
Insulting to our union.

For such sacred is our love —

Have the birds asked the atmosphere
How may I caress you with my songs?

Have the tadpoles expressed curiosity
About the flinging nature of their tails?

Have the hungry asked
How may I caress food?

Have the thirsty asked
How may I caress water?

Why then, do you — water — ask:

"How may I caress you?"

And so,
No water ever has asked a dry river basin,

"How may I caress you?"