And Yet Again
Tonight I want to offer you
this moonlight cupped in a purple
flower; this chorus of crickets
holding no grudge against the day’s
dying. I want to lift the cool sweetness
of sour-grass under the night wind
and soothe the tautness in your face.
I want to tempt you away from your heroic
silence for joy that is free and foolish.
I want to weave these early stars
like a rope for you to hold
and make your way past your old
hurts, faiths crumbling like dust.
This wanting is not a nebulous thing;
it is the soul desiring its other self
where need knows no hindrance of words.

Now, only this longing, this reaching
yet again – in spite of.

- Esther Phillips