Where is love?

Amended again 6th August

To the north waves in barley, 

Mirror shadows heading deep 
Into Megdale, across grass

Pollen holding fast, against the air.

Tenuous life, ploughed into furrows

is committed. Deferring to the soil.

While on the barley fetching breeze
Scents, lost souls, machinery faults

Catch the larks and buzzards
Spiriting them free of my passing.
High above this private enclave
Cupped by low hills: enthusiasm

No longer mumbles in the barns. 
The light fading over common land, 
In common with all lands, warms
The heart before the chill begins.

Amended work in progress, 16th July:

To the north waves in the barley, 

Mirror shadows heading deep 
Down into Megdale. 'cross grass

Pollen held by nothing but air.

Tenuous life, ploughed into furrows

is committed. Caught-up in soil.

While on the barley fetching breeze
Scents, lost souls, machinery faults

And ......

So where is love in all this?



To the north barley waves ascend.

Where is love? Southerly shadows

Climb. Grass pollen, not yet ready

To fly. Cattle low behind the hedge.

The sun has moved across the sky.

Where is love? Elsewhere? Barely.

Hidden high above the heavy sun?

Likely not. Ploughed into furrows

Caught up in chalk soil. Committed.

Carried in the barley furling breeze.

A measure of my capacity to love

To impose order on the arrhythmic tick
Of our expanding metal
Or for threes and fours to fit the slick
World view you profess,
We have kindled, I have burnt much away,
Embers in the stove
Remain but order is not the order of the day.

I take pleasure if it comes in the night:
The singing edge
Of my hearing, metallic methane light
Playing in the dark,
Retinal wisps skipping at will while I listen
To strangled breath,
Until day comes and drowns the kitten.

I do love you though you are not mine
And I am not yours.
While you sleep, work or not, bring wine
Lilies, anxious fires or pets
I slip into something which may coincide
With your choosing,
Unsure of the fit and what it will hide.

Success is Beautiful

Seven hundred metres doesn't seem such a great distance when it is out of context, or the context is benign, but even a fraction of it can separate life from oblivion.

I can walk seven hundred metres and enjoy every moment, though if time is limited and the walk is part of a necessary journey enjoyment is less likely. It can be the setting out, the existential joy of motion, weather or setting, or simply what is at the end of the journey that matters. Sometimes seven hundred metres is not enough and a desire to go further and then further still can only be satisfied by getting away.

Watching moving pictures of the Chilean miners being brought to the surface is deeply emotional. To them during their incarceration every metre must have moved through many different psychological states. The depth of the rock summed across the earth's surface its mass bearing down, the technical challenge it represented, the barrier to love and loved ones, for the deceivers a protection against the inevitable consequences of discovery bought about by the all the remote attention they and their lives have received. Being trapped has many degrees of separation not just the physical. Knowing freedom can be derived from only one.

It is affirming to see the impact of the successful rescue on the faces of the rescued, the rescuers and most of all the families. If ever it can be doubted that we are born to love then these pictures are the antidote. So many people have been lost in similar circumstances over the course of human existence that it would be easier for us as a race to dismiss another group of trapped miners as a common place and not worth the allocation of scarce resources. Perhaps some did this time and thought it too difficult or maybe they just didn't care enough. But some made the effort, skillfully meticulous and diligent they have achieved a tremendous victory for humanity.

The rescue is ongoing. I am nervous that it may falter at some point. I think of others in similar situations who didn't make it, the Russian sailors on the Kursk, the many in the World Trade Centre, let us hope that this mission is successfully completed and let us give thanks to humanity for having the capacity to love so effectively.

To write is to err and to err is divine.

I know that you are awake. Your breathing gives you away and it angers me. Although we have become so well known to each other it's paradoxically the small details about you that I despise. Not the casual everyday indiscretions that we all have, immature unhygienic behaviours, willful moments of selfishness. God knows I can be selfish too, but no. These things can and do annoy me but I am perfectly able to put them aside and continue in the charade of togtherness and love that we have tricked into being. Again no, what I despise is your confidence. You're not an overtly arrogant man, you're not prone to bragging, though your tendency to speak a little too forcefully and on subjects about which you know too little embarrasses me but again I have learnt to accept that. Maybe I should say learned as I've had to do it again and again but nevermind. It's the way that your self confidence is tenacious, whatever happens, whatever role you play even if it leads to damage you just sit by and acquiesce without blame or doubt.

I feign sleep to avoid conversation, we have said it all and what is left we know we cannot mention. On these matters we are silent, as we should be after all these years. Yesterday for a while I even thought you attractive again. Not enough to make me want you or even be a dutiful wife but the way you held yourself and conversed causally with people was still acceptable to me. It was a good evening, for a while until I became a bit drunk and aggressive. Slipping in and out of sleep I think about myself. Most days I find myself castigating myself for my lack of control, giving in to temptation. Today I feel good, I am pleased with the amount and quality of food that I have eaten. Portion control and balance are my mantras and it seems to be working. Last night before I had to rush into my pyjamas I'd admired myself in our bedroom mirror. You were coming and I wanted to avoid any advances, with my back slightly arched, one heel flat one raised and my waist tucked-in I felt really happy with my body for the first time in ages, I rubbed my hands across my belly and my waist and stood sideways on to the mirror, hands on hips.

***

Good morning my love I say to myself but I don't touch you or make a sound. I remember back to when we were separated for a while six years ago. I'd gone on holiday alone and was sitting in a café nursing a coffee. I really missed you then and what I missed most was our companionship, before we screwed it up with stress and difficulty I thought we had had such beauty together. I believed that we would have these times again if we could only construct our relationship differently. I felt hurt but I didn't want the pain to drive hasty decisions. I thought about your need for security, I thought we needed each other and that by going through a separation I'd become a better man. But in truth those were your words not mine.

I thought that going away would teach me a lot about myself. I don't think that it did. You had your lover. You asked me if I could cope with the emotions of being a alone while you were sleeping with him, I'd joked that we both swing to the rhythms of different lusts. Sometimes yours for safety, somtimes yours for men to covet and desire you. Other times you need to be loved for your heart and your mind, am I right?

I'd recommended you a song: 'baby, oh baby, you're my drug, come on baby let me get fucked up'. Such a male thing to sing but this is a woman's words. I thought if it came from someone else you'd understand. She understands. Love the high but long to be clean. I hoped that you'd feel some of this too? You wrote to me in explict detail about the things the two of you did to each other and you told me you felt like a whore, giving good value to your affluent older man. I think that it made you feel wonderful to for while, but only once you'd let me in on your secrets, only when you'd linked it to me. I could palpably feel your sexual excitement when you wrote those things.

And then in a flash it hurt you. You didn't want him anymore and the excitement became too much to bear. You spoke of carrying a weight of desire that would crush us if we didn't let it down to the ground. But the exquisite pleasure of being crushed still makes me want to take an extra step. Nothing's changed since. I still wish we could return to that time and for the way that your domination cocooned me to continue. For me you rang the changes much too soon. I didn't get my fantasy. You said that couldn't keep it going until then. It would have hurt me and in a way it always has, even though it didn't happen. I say I love you so much and more all the time. I love the loves of each other's lives, this is us to me.

Something to consider, please?

You seem to find me very negatively placed. You are right that I am not really a sociable animal. I don't really see the point of being with people just to recycle the same trivialities seemingly for narcissistic reasons. I'm thinking of particularly dull people that we know here.

I find that a lot of what happens to me disappointing i.e. the way I can be treated, ignored, disrespected etc. But in truth I am not treated any differently from anyone else, and no doubt I can treat others just the same, and I know that you have felt similarly. I try not to let it get me down, or if it does I can be fed up for a while but I can find enough peace within me to put it behind me. Treating people badly seems to be the way of the world. It's not for me though.

I can see that you see me as being lonely. I'm not. New work when it comes will bring new social opportunities, there's the pub, Mike, the kids, it's enough for now. I am generally happy to accept people as they are and if people aren't perfect, well I'm not either. The temporary nature of work related friendships tends to suit me. If I am to have longer term or more frequent relationships I want them to be based upon something shared and not just navel gazing or Dave and Ted's banal and immature pub crawling pussy hunts. I know that isolates me and I know that being opinionated can compound this. I try to be kind, generous and a good listener; much more so that many I some across, and most people only want their own self to prevail, I guess I get bored with that and that's why I don't see many people.I know that a lot of what you project onto me is a reflection of your past, my weaknesses and faults filtered through your values, our situation with its frustrations and uncertainties. But I think that you fell out of love with me a long time ago and sometimes I wonder if you ever did.

Yesterday I was happy to see you, was happy with my day, there was no problem. Of course life could be better, in our situation that's a given. Like you I cannot be super positive all the time. You clearly want a different life than we have had for some time, with the social aspects such as yesterday's lunch, Julie, your course, Tammy and the kids etc, that's fine by me I'm not possessive (I can be nervous about being hurt but that's a different matter) but please don't denigrate me becuase I want different things from life. I love you, we have until Thursday night before we're really together again. Let's not load it with too much expectation though. I just want you to be happy, if we can be happy together then that's what marriage is about.