stormlight

you spent the night with me again
shared my free and fragile perch
beside another indeterminate road
darkness never really fell
dreamtime made its motion felt
but not its forward pressure
shadows only wheeled, deepened, enlightened by turns
around bluegold opalescent light-diagonals
summer thunderheads were cumulating
over the western mountainsides
and sunflowers the color of monarch butterflies
the glow of undiluted sunlight
profused themselves on all sides
surrounding, taking no sides
complementing the cloudviolet
with a shelter only slightly less impermanent
and exposed than niche of wire mesh fence
we stationed ourselves in

trying to head off the storm again
sincerity and patience admirable
for knowing it would probably fall the same
luminous detachment as commendable in this space
as in daylight's tangle of desire
the only difference, there, necessity
and here at last truly freed from need and time

a struggle elemental as before:
still the gorgeously oppressive sky before it smothers
or distill those heavy stormclouds
and pour out all the life I/you/we deserved
but no, as here: never all cloudcover
and never really clear
no more to make of this lowering and exquisite potential
than of the last promise of abundance passing over
only sun seeking release through insufficient fissures
and your face, for a moment, gilded in stormlight