for S.

“Eros manifests the intimacy of being in a primordial “being with” (synousia): to be at all is “to be with.” IU 422

Hum of the cafe

where I spend my afternoons,

lost in this or that

book. Sometimes you leave

the back and sit down next to

me, our shoulders touch—

it lasts a minute.

You whisper something sad or

funny. It lasts and

lasts. The look in your

eyes sees through my loneliness

like desert starlight.

Desire, improvident,

faithful! The distance between

us fills, empties, fills.

Work-in-progress

“One might speak here of what the Greeks called “mania,” in terms of an intimate immanence rather than a merely external transcendence, though this immanence is not devoid of communication of an other, intimate transcendence,” IU 81.

Sitting in your car,

from the driver’s seat, you said,

“Look, Tom, a deer!” We

were parked by the cove,

talking in the warmth, the dark:

a shimmer ahead—

gone! Did the deer see

the delight in your eyes, to

see and be seen by

it? Interrupted

from being part of its strange

world beyond our world?

The dark between us

returns and yes I see it

still in your wide eyes.

“Our erotics witnesses to a passio essendi that is marked by a primal porosity to what exceeds all determination and finally our own self-determination.” IU 421f.

Work-in-progress

I was dead with grief

for years. You came and ripped my

heart in two. Now you

are part of me. One,

two. Now I count myself blessed

by your cutting glance

inviting me to

the dance, to hold you tight or

loose so we can breathe

as one or two. Love

is not one thing but a verb

I will learn to do.

I can count on you.