After The Harvest

Through days like empty fields after the harvest

This ache where the heart is

Like a tree that’s bare, ’neath a sky that’s starless

Like something out of place

I feel all used up I feel tarnished

Like smudged eyeliner, chipped nail varnish

Like something scarcely visible garnished

With a face

Think I might be done with this final strawness

This pick your heart back up off the floorness

This less that’s certainly not moreness

This bitter aftertaste

This rotten right down to the coreness

This beat your fists on the doorness

This myness this yourness

Well in any case

I know that love is bigger

Than this dumb day to day

I see its shining figure

Fighting for scraps out in the melee

Tell me I got this turned around the wrong way

Tell me I got it mixed up in my head

Feels like I’m left here standing on the runway

A fleeting thought that barely registers

So imagine gazing up

Into the great dispassionate eyes that observe us

Head slightly tilted to one side the way a bird does

Staring quizzically

At all our silly little lies, our absurd loves

Our scratching at the surface

Clowns throwing custard pies in the circus

Of our vanity

And I know that love is bigger

Than this grim day to day

I see its shining figure

Fighting for scraps out in the melee

And maybe I should know better

Than to take it personally

When the hand that wrote the love letter

Decides to write you out the story

Maybe I got this turned around the wrong way

Could be I got it mixed up in my head

Feels like I’m left here standing on the runway

A fleeting thought that barely registers

So now the moment of truth is finally upon us

Take a look in my eyes see how much I want this

As I stand here astonished

Scraping off the filth

Cutting away this stifling bodice

Underneath a brand new skin like a goddess

Words forming on my lips like a promise

To myself

I know that love is bigger

Than this dumb day to day

I watch its shining figure

Fighting for scraps out in the melee