ECHOES
FROM THE CANYON
REFLECTIONS
FROM THE DARK
By
TY CRUZ a.k.a. SOMBRAE
PART
1
ECHOES
FROM THE CANYON
Chance Encounter
Our eyes met, and in that glance all
time was held and all space.
A universe spun within the depth
of your soul, contained
And bounded by the soft
planes of your face,
Alive with all the tears, dreams
and hopes by love attained.
I, weary traveler of this world
and ready to forsake
My journey to rest awhile or
forever within your eyes,
Let loose all the chains of Earth,
and was in its wake
Drawn into your world to be
held by the binding ties
Of recognition. Between one heart's beat
and another grow
Inseparably together, then envious Time resumes;
and you turn…and go.
Mortal
child
Sweet mortal child of flesh and bone
Lost and lonely; all alone
All hopes live and all hopes die
On the fragile wings of dragonflies
Dreams of life and dreams alone
Are the tattered remnants of your soul
The fevered outcry of your heart
Only to end as you did start:
Alone.
The
Desert
Give me the desert
The heat scented wind
The drifted and flowing sands
Like so many golden strands
Of hair
The solitude of
Barren earth and stone
The wild, free loneliness of night
Awaiting the white-hot sun's flight
To come.
Perspectives
The canyon speaks to me of you:
I remember lying with my head
Down on the mattress
Looking upwards over your body,
Your breasts, gently lit by a
Street lamp against the dim night,
Like a hill rising above me.
And here, in the canyon, a silhouette
Captures my sight,
Repeats a familiar perspective;
Your breast echoed in a hill.
And I long to close my lips
Around the nipple of this
Gigantic breast
And taste again your salt
As my tongue plays music
On your body.
I tear my eyes away from visions
And stand solitary.
Canyon walls of rock and soil
Bind me to reality.
The wind moans.
I am silent in my missing you
And I am alone.
From
Hell's Canyon
There are spirits here;
They whisper among the cliffs
And bare rocks that crack
With the day's heat
And shake with the night's thunder.
They speak of aloneness
And chant of Mysteries:
The gentle rise of a hill
Like a woman's breast,
The sweep of a ridge against the
Sky; curved
Like her back or bared shoulder,
Or her hair
Wind-swept across her cheek.
There are spirits here;
They sing:
Voices rising from the river's rushing
Echoed among rock walls;
Home of eagles.
And if I listen quietly enough
Perhaps I will come
To understand them.
Echoes
From The Canyon
My lover is the canyon
And she is free---
Intense, burning, wild:
Storm clouds stream across the sky;
Her hair wind-whipped, black and gray.
Lightening: the flash of her sword strokes,
Her laughter thunder in my ears
As we dance,
My sword arcing, flashing in answer.
Laughing, screaming as I whirl and spar,
Giving voice to the wild freedom of
Eagles within my soul.
Yes, she is wild, her passion
And mine join
And are burned away in this
Mad dance
Leaving me spent.
----------------
Down-river:
Loving a woman I have only just met:
Her passions rock me,
And as our eyes lock
I see within her blue the gray of storm clouds,
The flash of lightening.
In the deep moans she utters
As I rouse her
I hear a distant thunder.
She writhes and tosses her hair;
Dark as cloud
Wind blown by the storm
We have created within this room,
And I find as the thunder rolls over me,
Consumes me,
That my lover is echoed here
Within this woman.
****
My lover is patient,
Strong as her
Rock cliffs and crags,
Soft as her sandy, grass clothed hillsides.
Her heat surrounds me, enfolds me,
Passion, burning low:
Banked fires.
Sheen of glassy rock echoed in the
Sheen of sweat on my skin,
Sun-brightness that wounds my eyes
And wounds my heart with her
Beauty.
Eagles, in lazy spirals, cry joyous
Freedom as they ride her thermals.
Her heat burns me brown, sears me
With passions intense beyond bearing.
I seek her cool shadows and find
A spring of crystal waters.
I lower my face to her gift
And drink of her;
Cool and soothing,
Bringing ease to my burning.
----------------
Down-river:
And here in another woman's
Eyes, brown this time,
And shadowed,
I see sunlight on rock faces,
Golden highlights;
The heat of rock reflected sun;
The burning.
And she, too, has a spring of sweet waters.
I lower my head and taste deeply,
Quenching my thirst.
She cries out and I hear
The call of eagles.
I am lifted and ride her thermals
On the outspread wings of passion.
Below me, I again see reflected
The face of my lover.
****
She is clever, she who is my lover,
And likes to mock me;
Throwing my words back to me
When I call out from her high
Hard rock cliffs.
I dance on her cliff edges and
The wind, her fingers,
Slide over my body;
A caress.
I dance upon the cliff's very edge
Daring a fall,
Part of me wanting it; to throw
Myself into the rock hard
Arms of my lover:
A final surrender.
She calls; her voice moaning through
The draws.
I throw back my head and give voice
To the loneliness,
And yearning,
That move through my soul
Like a great river.
And in my voice I hear the cry
Of coyotes,
A song of despair,
And my lover, as always,
Echoes back my call;
Mocking my pain, my passions.
I press my cheek to sun-hot stone;
Hard and uncaring
And know that I am dying here
Or going mad.
----------------
Down-river:
Staring into the eyes of a woman
As she sits across the table,
Our untouched dinners between us.
There is sadness in her eyes,
Gray and gentle.
As her glance slides over me
I feel wind, warm and caressing,
Against my skin.
She speaks her own words,
Not a mocking echo of mine;
Words of accusation and sorrow:
Painting a picture of rock hard cliffs,
Searing heat,
The burning.
I see in my mind's-eye the face of my lover,
The canyon,
Her uncaring stone,
Deep waters, incredible storms.
I search this woman's eyes as
She continues speaking
Of me.
Pain howls anguish within my heart;
The cry of coyotes
On windswept and darkened crags:
I do not fall,
I do not surrender.
I am the echo of my lover;
And as I walk away I hear
This gray-eyed woman's words
Echoing off my stone---
Realities
I stand on high crags
And lean into the wind,
Longing to spread wings
And leap outward
To soar on warm air
Leaving everything behind;
The ultimate of freedoms.
But I know I am hopelessly chained
To the earth.
Weighted by my yearnings,
Held down by loneliness
And longing,
Grounded by my hope
Of love.
I press my cheek to warm rock,
Rough, unfeeling,
Unresponsive.
I crave a softness
To touch, to hold and be held
By arms of flesh and blood and bone
Alive with human passions.
I stare outward, my back against stone;
The canyon's upthrust bones,
The canyon, whom in a moment
Of fancy I have named
As my lover,
And I hate her
In the deep knowledge
That she is not real
And I am
All alone.
A
Truth
I had believed
When first I came here,
That the canyon held secrets
And I would learn to hear her.
That the rocks and heated sands,
The wind and the river
Would whisper wisdom to me.
And I have learned a mystery:
That the canyon;
Rock walls and water,
Echo and reflect
My inner-most heart
And being,
And all I had sought
To learn
Was within me always.
But foolish, in the way of humans,
I first had to look outward
In order to finally see
Within.
PART
TWO
REFLECTIONS
FROM THE DARK
My
Lady Dreams
The moon it has risen
Over the few passers-by.
Walk soft, night strangers,
As my lady dreams.
I sit in the darkness
Touched by night sounds;
Echoes of earlier touching,
And my lady now dreams
.
My cigarette smoke rises
Towards the full moon;
Silver on darkness
As my lady dreams.
Woman
Woman, I held you
For a span
A dream free of time
Alone together
I understood you there
Within ourselves.
I Love
Lost in realms of sabled night
I walked alone,
Searching for what the heart had
Hidden from the soul.
Then the touch, the keen piercing
Of your glance,
Like the swift and fatal blow
Of knightly lance,
Laying open breast and bone to the
Dark heart's blood;
Leaving the undefended soul to
Moan, "I love".
The leap and lift of ecstasy when
Eye holds eye;
The spiral flight of eagles
Held on high.
As one we reach to hold again
The other's hand,
The magnet of flesh to flesh is drawn
Until we stand
Cheek on cheek pressed to hide
The soft blush.
And the soul within, exalted,
Cries, " I love".
In one night of frost's killing cold
You are gone.
Left in winter's climes of leaden gray
Again I am alone.
My thoughts; the sudden flight of birds
Across the snow
And ice bound sky, arc, cutting
To the soul.
The sharp and brittle sound of broken
Heart, scattered blood,
Echoes the numbed and frozen soul's
Sigh, "I loved".
Lover
She lies in softness
Warm as night
Her scent enthralls me
Engulfs me
Her hair reflecting starlight
She gasps and writhes
Eyes wide, silvered by the moon
As I trail kisses down her body
And take the taste of her
On my tongue.
Night
As she leans over me
Darkness falls across my eyes
Like the warm and sweet-scented
Hair of a lover.
In tender and loving arms
She takes me to her embrace
Soothing the wounds left by
Keen-edged day.
A
Walker At Night
Come, darkness whose name is Night,
The sun is gone, ceased its gaudy flight
Across the sky.
As the moon lifts wingless overhead
Lovers make mock-struggle in their beds
And nighthawks cry.
Under the long, slow silence of the stars
The soundless fall of a moonbeam jars
The soul with unheard song.
Limned by starlight the quivering leaves
Whisper secrets from the shadowed trees
That the breezes dance among.
Like the ancient tug of moon on flood
I feel your power, in bone and blood,
Rising as the tide.
Thus beguiled, unresisting, by your call
I leave behind imprisoning walls
To journey at your side.
Reflections
From The Dark
Alone in the dark with the wild scent of night
Wrapped about my heart
And the far off violence of innumerable suns by
Distance reduced to a star.
The cold, white light cast down by the heavens
Denies the original rage of burning,
As in the dark mirror of the sky
I see the images merging
Of the fury and ancient pain
Within a heart too much alone.
Reflections seen in the living night
Of my human soul.
Desolation
From the dark heart's loneliness
My love is come.
Being not born of Purity's light,
Nor of the exquisite flight
On fiery wings of the Poet's song
That lovers lament unto self done
Death, when Icarus-like it falls
Burning from the height.
My passion from too much aloneness
Is more dearly won.
Creeping towards the dim seen light,
Only to sink beneath viscous waves of night,
Unheeding of the last trumpet calls
To resurrection; by Love itself undone.
Enduring
I have watched the motion of stars
As night wheels down, changing to the bright
Arc of sun crossing the sky
Soon to settle again, breaking free the night.
I have watched the seasons dance
Their colors past my jaded eye
To give birth to years that
On the winged decades fly.
Weight-weary my soul lies within
The walls of memory; immured,
Still I watch the falling years
Mount o'er my head, yet I endure.
By Ty Cruz a.k.a. Sombrae
Sombrae@yahoo.com
1999
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