Courting a Love Unseen

Could my father visit yours with many head of cattle?
He is gone now and calls only in dreams,~
and haunts the places men gather to clean their nets and smoke.

With none to speak for me, my heart
is exposed to the laughter of onlookers,
and the timid longings of the girl next door.

Do I build here from the beached flotsam and driftwood
the likeness of a pregnant cargo plane on the jungle-grown strip,
now that airships land here only in crone's memory more?

I wonder if you ever did, or would, or even should
view your caricature in the sticks and sod of my imagination.
Would you find, on landing, an embarrassment of riches
or rich embarrassment in the flesh that has made so many words?

How do restless spirits alight to nest with each other
and wake to chirp a dawn fresh with sun-soaked greens and yellows,
take wing to a pale blue sky with one pink-fringed cloud?

The potion of love is a pinch of chemistry
and a long history of mutual "yes" made daily true,
in opening the soul's forbidden places,
in sniffing the strange smell of each other, yes,
in filling shopping carts and putting out the trash.

Hesitation builds grand occasions, glitz and pretense,
while I relish old-shoe comforts, desire a patina.
Wear me with your soft and gentle strokes,
and I shall glow for you from within.

Yes, let us meet at last, and begin the other dance,
strip off the mind's heavy cardigan,
around the fire of recognition
pound tropic earth with dusty feet
to the drumming of our hearts.