My Soul Twin

Leafy chambers sculpted from fragile bronze boughs 

Nomad clouds rosy behind straw-combed hills 

My soul passes through a sapphire chalice 

Seeking an untrodden sunlit path to truth 

Amid the overwhelming chaos of life 

Suddenly I see you in the purple dawn 

Blind faces appear in smoked cracked mirrors 

Aching with covered eyes to glimpse an angel 

But your pale ash face is turned to the sun 

Like a seraph weighed down by Phaeton’s wings 

I am certain you are my reflection 

You are me in the guise of a tired clown 

A clown with a happy smile on his face

You emerged from my soul’s leafy chamber 

From the flaming sand underneath my feet 

You are my double in a cracked looking glass 

Who reflects forked shadows and curved planes

I chart my circles of life on ochre dunes 

Glancing at zephyr clouds in sacred awe 

Warming my hands on dandelion snow globes

I recognized my soul’s winged twin 

I saw you lying on feathery grass 

I touched your hand and you stirred in your sleep 

On a sudden you woke and began speaking

You spoke a strange dialect I didn’t know 

But I knew you were part of my essence 

I have caught myself crying in fevered dreams

Ached to see my soul of which you were part

You are my spark of unblemished heaven 

That opened up a crevice in my being 

I get up stumbling in uncreated light 

I reach two scrawny hands up to blue fog heaven

I stand on mountains close to the sky 

Inhaling gentle clover warmth with my lungs 

My heart beats impatient to jump out 

Hoping, longing, waiting to see the world

But now I know the twin of my young soul 

You are one with me and you will be my guide

Up and down the untrodden paths of men 

Somewhere with leaden skies and ashen meadows 

Emerald altars fling open their doors 

Sugar cone mounds sparkle in sunburnt joy

Juicy rays descend from heaven on gray wings

But I long to read your essence like a book 

To glimpse the sunlit heights of apricot skies 

I long to catch the spark of beauty that is truth

Or watch coconut snow fall in soft flakes 

To rest inside cave chapels of silver blue 

Among sapphire stars of newborn beauty 

Guided by mighty gusts of warm South winds

I long to sleep in soft angelic warmth 

Of childhood dreams and teddy bear smiles 

I long to listen to the ringing twilight 

On porches with alabaster pineapples 

Or rock in rain-washed swings on purple days 

Watching white stars fall flashing on August nights 

While waiting to enter earthly paradise

With leaden feet I walk down these thorny roads

In aching steps to the place that angels blessed 

Up high to altars where birds of passage nest