The University Gallery - 12:38am

The medium of the canvas before me is
music and words
Fear. Imperfect love. The ragged edge between
want and need. Charcoal and light
such a chasm. I fear, I hope
but I am not sure of you.
The charcoal, the silence, the beautiful peace
and the thudding in my ears.
My heart, my hope, my fear. The hope that will
not die
This gallery wants me. Wants me to separate
myself from this life. The black and white
lithographs dance in me, call me by name, and
the glass is between the love and
my fingertip.
Fear. Imperfect love. A synthesis of emotion that
builds or destroys.
Can I? Should I?
The more I need you, the more you fade
away. The more I desire
to give you myself, the more I fear
the giving.
Oh, fear. Imperfect love.
I pray for grace to cast it out. Your hands
can touch this shirt, can soothe
this beating heart, and slow it
down to trust.
The walls echo an empty light. Now, in me,
flesh and blood. Such as chasm. Still, I will
hold on. Like drying in the summer sun,
chlorine thick on my skin. Like healing and
memory and forgiveness. I swallow
my pride, to place
my heart in the
hand of God.
And I know, when my spirit longs to unfold
these weary wings, and my tongue longs
to taste the summer
in your sigh, when the time
is right, He will say
"Let it be."
The medium of the canvas before me now is
faith and hope.
This time is only a first draft.
I can. I will.

- kg

10/2/88