Jenny Sullivan

The street is steady and the lights are fixed
their glow projects between the yellow lines
the rain dissolves within a fragile mist
And I am here pretending to be fine

Only for this moment –
Can I love the face in front of me?
Only for a single breath –
can this be all I see:
these hopeful eyes,
this broken glance,
this thin disguise,
this fleeting chance
to be inside the given time,
to love a life that is not mine
and find
a beauty in
the preciousness of this –
existence, person, moment, gift,
the sacredness of what-now-is

Something in me stirs
when I see sidewalk cracks – 
those crooked lines
dividing surfaces so smooth
in twos or threes or fours
like faded stained glass underfoot – 
the clefts all sprouting up with grass
and bending weeds
and crinkling leaves
and things that will not last

Fear is a feeling you wish
you did not have to feel
your suffering
is a hard fact
(you suffered – 
you cannot change that)

You wish you could change
the “what was” and erase
the hopelessness, worthlessness
of that dark place;
wish that your story could somehow be shaped
with an alternate slant

In seeking always for a concrete sign,
you watch the sky expectantly – with stars,
prophetic moons and meteors in mind.
You wait for words descending from afar
to tell you where to go and at what hour
you should begin. But night does not reveal
divine intent. The clouds obscure its power
and when the stars appear they all are sealed.
They ought to tell you: Look towards the earth,
where little stones and shrivelled petals lie,
where life in its perpetual small birth
lives simply and is not afraid to die.
Be not in search of grandeur or in haste
to know the whole. But be content with grace

(The giver never has a thought of waste)

On days, on days like these I gaze
Upon the face where only beauty dwells
I cannot tell
Of darkness, there is only light
Inside these eyes and in my own
My heart will break, my heart will break
And would that you would never be alone
Now and at the hour when you will wake
And see the world the way I see
For love of you
Your eyes and all the truth they speak to mine
The rippled blue reflection of
a thought divine
My heart will break, my heart will break
And love like this so pure it can erase
The sorrow so long carried in this soul
And give a glimpse of nameless, boundless joy
For now we see in part but then
For love of you
We will see face to face
As I now gaze
Upon the eyes that shine up back to mine

The sirens all are silent from up here
and suffering is hushed, though present still.
She searches for that strange elusive place
where rest can greet unrest and peace can fill

the parched and empty spaces of the soul,
and slow the frenzied pulsing of her thoughts
(the mind can have a heartbeat of its own –
in overstraining anxiously, will clot).

I know the name of sorrow
It follows on this path
My face against the window pressed
The smudges blur my vision

Yes, I have asked for many things
But pain is not among them
The veil of shadow overcasts
An unexpected beauty

The darkness is dark
But is always for sometimes
And not without end
The bend
in your future will come
And you will be new
Remade though you do not know how

You are so brave
Every time you get up in the morning
With the ache behind your eyes
And that worthless numbness feeling
As you open the blinds