If summer were a more riotous time

Then the waves that erode this restless

Beach of mine would have carried away

More sand.

The wind would have abraded all

That is left of my civility.

The exposed

Raw passions would have left my house

Only on spindly stilts against the storm.

But summer languishes. Even the heat

Is bearable for the sluggish running of the

Blood, the muddy crawl of emotions through

The sluiceways of life.

I mop my brow and turn

From the tides of lovers lost,

From the sun of

Human contact.

I seal myself hermetically

In an air conditioned womb.

There I stew; there I think.

I know more than I reveal;

Sense more than I know.

Sometimes I pry the carton

On the deepest yearnings

Of the human universe

And I am not and never have

Been surprised by what we drink.

We are all the bearers of secrets

Not the least of which are the lusts

We carry in our backpacks

Like that tiny flask to sustain us

When the water is all gone.

What I know could curdle milk;

What I have heard could bring

Consternation to that already

Lost in chaos

I am the keeper of keys

To souls I worship highly;

The warden of black thoughts

In a prison of dark desires

People come to me

Because I don’t go to people

I promise them:

I will die with their secrets buried

In my heart.

I do not judge

Hence, the tide spares me

The Karmic ruin foisted

On the noisy and profane.

It is the thing I value most:

The ability to hear with two ears

And a pair of shuttered lips

I make connections of the threads

To see what only the blind can truly

See. I know more than I tell, more than they

Reveal.

Were the summer a more glamorous time

For the flow of blood and tears

Then I might bleed and cry

With more abandon.

As it is, if you want to talk to me

There is no better time to reach my soul

Than when my heart is on the ice.    

07/20/2003

Author's Note: Dedicated to those who trust and tell...I keep your confidences dear.

Posted on 07/20/2003
Copyright © 2025 Ken Harnisch