Silver, Turning

Can I tell you something?
That your hands are with me,
the hours passing in vibration,
knowing that I'll always love you
though I cannot sing for you
Across the river on the wires
the words are spinning
like the helix of our lives
never meeting always spiral
bound with rungs of woven air
a ladder to the heavens
whispers in the faroff thunder
of our newly silvered mirror
Am I prophet, no.
Am I river, running
through midwestern grasses
and You the sky
the moon in cirrus clouds
the satellite our telephone
You are silver whispers, silver
laughter, silver voiced
echoing I am wounded by your
breathing: lightening flashes
doubling the pleasure
I am rain and I am falling
I am river, swollen with clear
wine and blood and racing
to the ocean to the end
and your voice is candor but can
you say you love me and does
it matter? Can I tell you something?
That my love goes with you
across the miles of river valley
through the calendar of our days
against the wisdom of other men
this at least is sure
this at least I know

Another poem from 1978 (I think) when things were running hot and cold. AG lived in southern Illinois and we spent a fucking mint on telephone calls. In those days if you called someone and talked for an hour it could cost twenty dollars. And those were dollars in the 70s when I was lucky to find a job making $600 a month. I was hung up on the river valley at that time. The Mississippi is a presence and an actor in this land of ours, and it always will be.