I have left my love of beauty

I have left my deeper sense of beauty with my lost love
somewhere between the past and the unknown
in the savannah of high-mountain desert
in the midnight stars of ceremonial mystery
in the longing for the chance to say the sweet thing 
that stuck to my tongue
when the habit of bitterness stood between us
I have left beauty somewhere in the clouds over New Mexico
perhaps in the prayer dirt of Chimayo or a dusty road outside Madrid
where I let my dreams rip out of me into the God-sky
trusting that they would fly back on sacred wings 
and nest in our hearts

they never came home, and she left, too
and I’ve lost my perch and my ground at the same time

Today, I lie in the dirt, waiting for what, I don’t know
just too tired to move my heart in any direction
I can’t seem to gather the pieces, the rivulets of grief
the tears and scars barely holding together what is left

when I long for beauty, it brings the emptiness
of something I gave away with the deepest trust
or perhaps hope, that I would be met

If you had taken it from me and run
that would have left me angry and righteous
but that you didn’t even want it
and let it fall away in the breezes
leaves me hollow and unwanted in such a way 
that I don’t know how to stand

I lie in the dirt and offer my tears to the earth
and to my own self that needs more nurturing than I can offer it
craving stillness in this sorrow, to just be
praying to the mother to feed me in some way

to bring life back into me so that I can 
move towards something again
towards something beautiful again