Sex is an expression
Whether it be noun
Or verb it identifies
Someone as something or
Carnal desire as action
Love is a color
An aura which surrounds
And beams which embraces
Or leaves like Autumn
Sex is the fall
Love is the orange
And yellow and red
And like a willow
Or a river birch
I found my self
Rooted and simply standing
Often and at times
Victim of the wind
Which wound and weaved
Through the years limbs
And every so often
Men would stumble upon
Me in search of the
The river in which
They swam I drank
Throwing off their clothes
And splashing and diving
In and beneath me
The river their baptism
And me their comfort
My forever is behind
Me having been spent
But never squandered what
Used to be a
Map is now a
Scrapbook it’s funny how
Fast things happen how
Quickly life fills in
The blanks and love
The colors now if
You are young and
Especially if old save
Only your pennies and
Spend absolutely everything else
After having just completed
My first good poem
I leapt to my
Feet in front of
My mentor and screamed
I found my voice
He grabbed my shoulder
And sat me down
Saying my dear boy
You’ve just begun to
Whisper and now forty
Years and thousands of
Poems I write with
The raspy voice of
Age preferring to whisper
Leaving the yelling to
The young and wondering
After all of this
Have I ever found
My voice at all
Why oh why for
God’s sake why why
Are the best ones
Always so far away
Is it that distance
Denies what might be
Loving at arms length
Maybe when they’re there
The idea of here
Of actual intimacy of
The hot and cold
Of our running water
Remains what it is
And not the tepid
Temperature that relationships become
HARLAN DIDRICKSON 