That Beauty That is Terror

This poem was written awhile ago after losing someone I loved deeply and had been involved with at two extended time points in my life spanning fifteen years.
He was 45 at the time of his death which was not expected. Never had I felt as KNOWN as in this relationship. The ebb and flow of the connection was a given. After his death, I waited three years to even consider meeting someone else and then met someone immediately. I felt passionately and intensely about this new love but I had not yet been able to fully let go of the other relationship. This poem is about the new love that I met. Loving two people in this way, one of whom was not in this world, felt like an emotional tail spin.

I find I can still recapture all the feelings, the connection, and the disconnect and the struggle to stay in this new relationship, because I wanted to do so, while still not having said a total goodbye to someone that I felt to be a forever soul connection. At the same time, there was the feeling always that
my new love would disappear (i.e. die)

That Beauty That is Terror

Loving you
Without benefit of words
or without your presence
Can be as one of Rilke's Angels

That beauty that
Is terror
To this part-time
Little girl in a grown up world

Cursed and blessed with
Seeing potentials and feelings
She navigates by default a
Ship on a tilt alone
Toward unknown shores

While away from you
As Captain you seem
Otherwise occupied
Cerebral, distracted

Perhaps through
No fault of
Your own and
Perhaps as her illusion
Charting your own course

Leaving to the girl-child
The here and now
Day by day journey
Giving her few coordinates

Yet you remain
Ever the diplomat
Caring,responsive
Benovelence implied
Consolation given

Coming to you
Is like entering a
Haven from navigating
A respite
An oasis of connection

Moving within three feet of
Your skin and
Your touch
Is like moving
Through a mine field of

Chemistry and involuntary responses
A yearning energy of
Physical longing and wanting
Needing urgently, immediately
Yet never wanting the need to end

Being with you
In the biblical sense is
Fire in a desert, phoenix rising
Spiritual, passionate, consuming
Ultimate dirty dancing

Speeping with you is
Safety at a primal level
For a sensitive soul
Touching knowing without barrier
Being.