I seem to be always leaving. Never a homecoming for me. Never an everafter. Haven’t managed the till death do us part bit.

Today I was looking at the exquisite photos of the baby girl of my friends. He used to be a love of mine, in another life. His wife is a treasure. A true friend. And their baby girl is an element of dreams, a creature of light and laughter that removes any and every sorrow I ever imagined carying in my curls.

It made me think of permanence, those photos. How she will grow and grow, and I will fade and fade, and the love we will have for her will never diminish. It made me realize I do not have that in my own life.

Love, sure.

Instinct and love beyond the mind? No.

Maybe never?

I am off again, days here and there, films to pursue, books to launch, people to interview, deserts and waters to visit, suitcases to schlep around and curse, strangers on vehicles of movement to befriend and then semi- forget.

At least, I have poetry. And you, anonymous cyberspace dweller.

Here is an old old poem I wrote.

All that may not happen

12/2007,

Beirut.

i may never know who you truly are

or what paths of secret devil

schemes and voodoo magic

brought your face

to my smile

i will not retrace the journey

to this gift of your arms

tonight

and i may never sleep till death

by your laboring flesh

but for the promise of pleasure

uninterrupted

in your cadence by my side

at all the motion

repressed or broken wild

this promise of soft vapor after

is worth a thousand words

of a debt i now

owe

i owe you lines of kisses

and poems of inconceivable wealth

for now

i offer the

sacred nothing i can offer you

fingers to clasp

silence with every morn’s dew

a memory of

my calm breath in the night