The Gentle Journey

      (For Darlene Jardine)

What is there unconditional, if advice
From some far-seeing sage would hold you back,
Reserve the journey as though you should be wise
Lest love dissolve or, worse, devolve to attack?

Where winds the boundary of your reserve
Where I must wait you taking my moist hand
To lead me on the gentle journey, to serve
With your good will, my will to understand?

I'd tour your heart. I would I were inside
To feel its fretful arches overhead
And kneel in its cathedral opened wide
To house my fragile worries -- most unsaid;

      For where are words to serve me and my hope?
      Why, with your smile you show that none could cope!

Nik Habermel, September 1998