Isen

(July 2022. After leaving Rainbow I received a text from a girl I’d briefly met there, Isen, the only other person wearing sunflowers on their shirt (yellow flowers lined the whole drive into the parking lot, so it was appropriate.) She was car camping and wanted to meet up, so we met at a beautiful campsite in the White River National Forest by a creek and spent two lovely nights there as sunflower lovers, which inspired this poem by the creek. After this we went to Leadville, but unfortunately, she got a bad stomach bug, probably from Rainbow, and then gave it to me. So we spent a couple days shitting our brains out in the woods in a lot of pain, and so we were no longer sunflower lovers for the last couple days of our time together. But those first few days were magic, magic enough to spark this poem after like 24 hours of hanging out, and maybe one day we will be able to spark that magic again. I hope other lovers can make me feel like this more sustainably in the future.)

Isen

I sense the light in you as I sense the light in me—
The way touch warms, the heat of centers giving,
The life-giving closeness that makes a star a sun.

The surprise at finding your eyes beyond the end of the Rainbow,
Eye zen, how looking can be moving and still,
How passion can be still and moving,
How love can arrive unannounced in an hour,
How history becomes a form of waiting in the moment of love,
How suddenly one can say what I’ve wanted to hear,
How easily one’s hands and mouth can heal
And how good it can feel, the medicine of your body,
Your touch playing down the length of my bent spine
Being loved as I’ve always wanted to be loved,
(As the clear water of this unknown Colorado creek
Laves the colorful rock smooth,
As the water curves to love the rock to perfection,)
The pain of all pasts melting in the light of our presence.