The Body is Endless

Our bodies have the dark marrow of a blue sky,

Of water brightened by a setting sun,

Of earth rolling deep.

Her beauty is unavoidable in the right light,

When her blue eyes catch the serene of a moment and cast it aside in spiteful glee;

when her legs show long in summer

- Smooth ivory skin over summer-riding thigh and ready knee –

And through her beauty man's place in the universe speaks to me.

But every eye in gleeful youth must stay the path,

And pass beyond the point of praise:

Every strand of hair turns gray, every knee grows weak:

Our bodies are on the wane. My bones crack involuntarily when I rise from bed

Or do pushups; my knees and back ache after a game of make-it–take-it.

She has grown lazy about getting into her garden, forgetful about all the

Chores she makes for herself.

It is a slow secretive thing. I resent the deception of our bodies as they move through the hours.

I do not want to have the marrow of the sky. I want to have only the blue of sky,

The bright of shining water, the rolling edge of earth.

The marrow of our bodies holds the harness of the moment, and

I cannot see the shifting of our depths.

But somehow they shift away, and the blue of her eyes, the blue of the sky,

jostles as we shift: we can see our surfaces rewritten. The marrow cries out. We are pierced.

But I see the blue eyes, brown hair, piercing smile

of my wife in the hall,

the frolicsome spring flicks of her horse’s tail

In winter pasture,

And they are caught in the harness of the moment,

effortless.

Grace.

It moves as a shadow compelled by the sun,

and neither youth, age nor wisdom own it.

It does not need red scarves or lipstick

Or riders’ saddles,

Or a time pre-approved

To be.

This poem cannot give my body or hers

vitality;

but if I do not name the desire of my being I will fade into the marrow of it, weak,

watching the grace of our bodies slip off,

and though the harness cannot break,

though the passing moment does not pass away,

I will have moved into the marrow of every moment without touching

An outward way.