A Set of Sunset Soul Poems

Sunset in Cody, Wyoming on January 2, 2021 (day these poems were written)

January 2, 2021

Cody, Wyoming

Cabin Home

Just Hang On! I'm Ready to Let Go

As long as I keep this up

And it’s not that I don’t want to

Because I love you

I do, I do, you know

I do. It’s just that

As long as I pretend

Someday I could love you as

You love me

I keep us both from becoming

Who we’re meant to be.

…….

Loveborn

All I can tell you is this, child, the old woman said.

Love is the only thing that matters.

And there’s a certain kind of love for everyone

There’s the right type to give to the right person at the right time.

Real Love can’t be pretend, no matter what kind it is.

Pretend doesn’t work when it comes to Love.

You can’t fool the heart, child, no you cannot.

So the trick, first, is to be able to Love

Love and love and love and love, wild, and open, gushing like you’ll never run out.

And as you grow, you begin to refine and to feel and to choose, to sense

Which Love is best for which circumstance.

You’ll spend a long time thinking you have control of this —

That you can change the type of Love that is born between you and

Anything else. Sure, there isn’t anything else

Besides Love, but that’s what this life is all about:

Experiencing every side of Love as if it was a million different things

And not just One. The trick is to accept them all

And allow them to come through as they will.

You cannot will the type of love reflected between two

Seemingly different things to change. Our whole assignment here

Is to accept the Love that is, as it is, and not try to change it.

Also to be honest about it.

Love is the only thing that matters, and you

Will be getting down to the bottom of the matter

Once you figure out you’re not so much the master

As the messenger.

…..

Iron and me

It is a great irony, no?

That we cannot find anything for which we are looking

Looking from a state of loss, all is lost.

Only in the state of completion does that which completes

Comply. Arrive. Intertwine seamlessly into our lives.

Ironically

I only find what I already have found.

…

Flame Games

The wind blows, howls, whines in cracks between weather seal and door frame.

One real candle burns, Carolina Sugar Cane Mist, a salty blue pool of wax

Amongst three battery powered candle beams.

The loft is a safe place and when I am here I can be

Above anything that keeps me down

Writing while no one else is around

Far enough to fall to get hurt if I hit the ground.

I’m not afraid to fall, you know.

That’s why I come up here, to fly, to die

To whatever threatens to push in, I pull myself up

And up, and up, rung by rung, til I am here,

In the peaceful place where I can let go.

I don’t want to, exactly, you know.

There have been so many wonderful places we said we’d go

And we did. We went! We did it. And yet.

Here I am, alone. But not alone at all, really

A kitty tries to lay on my chest but I’m not ready to put the keyboard to rest.

It’s best, I realize, and mean it: all for the best

All is well in my life; everything is happening for my highest good, including this

Echoes Louise Hay in my mind on replay. And I know it’s true

I do, but I still miss you and I still wish you

Might have been the real flame

Not just circuits and wires casting shadows and playing games.

….

Dear Life,

Thank you for everything. Thank you for exactly where I am. Thank you for this beautiful night and my heavy blinking eyes, thank you for all that seems known but is really a surprise. Thank you for the chance to stop pretending that I know what’s going to happen next, or really where I’m even going at all. In the midst of this ride (where you drive) I am pulled to and fro, back and forth, first here, now there, just like the tide.