Selfless

We are signals in the spectrum,
We are waves upon the sea:
The signal flies, the waters flow,
But the pattern in them is me.
The hand that holds my hand today
Is not the flesh it was before.
The lips that kiss are different flesh,
But still the lips that I adore.

Behind those eyes that smile at me
Resides a boundless mystery:
How do you know that you love me,
And how do you share my history?
When my mind is seizured free,
And I drift in a selfless now,
My hand still loves to hold your hand,
Though joy remembers not who, nor how.

Male or female, young or old,
I do not know, nor know to care,
But hold you in unmemoried bliss;
Of you, though not of self, aware.
Unremembered my meeting you,
Unforeseen my losing you:
That is love in its purest form,
Perfected through and through.

Ákařa dances in the Nameless Land,
Where no man goes, and no voice speaks.
What stars shine down upon that land,
What suns gleam from its peaks?
Where is the gate to take me there,
How and when must I strive?
Whose are the feet that made the path—
And what will I say when I arrive?

One step forward, a hundred steps back,
Every day we lose it all.
The daily things we never write down
Tomorrow cannot recall.
So write, my soul, the lines of fire
That cry out in the nights!
Unexpressed is unremembered:
Unknown love no one requites.

—San Diego and San Ysidro
5/31 and 6/27 and 7/4/2002, 12/28/2017, and 1/31/2018