inundation

sometimes I feel like I'm drowning
in a lake thick with weary memory.
all I want is for hands to reach through holy water
find me shake me awake from my wet hell, my history.
I pray: please get these demons out of my mind
I cry: just get these demons out of my mind...
Don't let me sink like others before me...
sailors follow in the wake of apathy, unwanted
and unwashed, swallowed by the water they swallowed,
they leave vessels empty, ships unmanned...
one more time to rise, the third, I am allowed:
love from you to me flows undaunted
a river that rages more as it ages undammed--
with a steady will you make me slowly unhaunted:
the blanket of your deep caring covers a shivering me;
lines of cold water mix with sweat and cling to me
like dull drops of nightmares I cannot forget.
Every time I look at you I almost cry...
A fire begins to glow as light flares,
soon my body like my heart is safe, warm, and dry.

2.20.2006