Come, My Love

Come, My Love

The night trains are rolling

over the crossings and under the bridges

low rumbling engines, felt more than heard

and the lonely whistle calls

steel and wheels 500 miles away by morning

but this dark night I want you near

the curl of your back to my heart

Come, My Love

The night trains are rolling

The Man in the Station

Ache...

To The Lady on the Train,

My heart aches for you... I would carry any load for you, if only I could...

The Man in the Station

Haunt...

To The Lady on the Train,

Wherever you may be, whatever you may be doing, wherever I may be, whatever I may be doing, my thoughts are with you. I cannot set you down. There is something of you in every action, every sight, every sound...

We move through space and time and our ghosts follow us like a wake...

The Man in the Station

A Dance

To The Lady on the Train,

Holding your hand in mine, the press of my palm into the small of your back, the scent of your skin filling me up... the feel of the length of you against me, the softness of your cheek next to mine...

As we danced, turning slow on the hardwood floor... everyone and everything else fell away... and time changed... it was an instant and an eternity...  never wanting to let go, for it to end... to release us back into the world...

You change time and space.

You are magic.

The Man in the Station

Secret Smile

To The Lady on the Train,

I sometimes see you when I least expect it and my breath catches, my heart races, and everything stops for a moment... What surprises me though, is that I have the same reaction when you first come into view when I do expect to see you... And invariably, I smile... because it comes from deep within and here it manifests itself... my happiness at seeing you will not be held contained...

Being with you is like standing in the warm sun after a long winter... everything is warmed, brightened... lifted up...

The Man in the Station

Away and a River

To The Lady on the Train,

Sometimes there is a far-away look in your eyes, your jaw set tight and square, and your mouth held tense... You are away somewhere... thinking... In these times, your voice changes tone - the language you use is much different too...

I see you as someone who realizes that they have just put one foot on what may be quicksand... or someone who has just come through some fire and must now reflect... some tough decision to be made, a regret to push through, a hard thing that must be done, a person who may be hurt, a leaving, an arrival... whatever it is, you hold it close.

During, these times I am in awe of you... the calm and business exterior, dealing with the daily routines and trivialities of life... but inside, inside there is so much more going on...Like a river where a strong current flows under a calm surface.. beautiful and gentle to see - but a power far stronger than most can imagine...you will carry through with a majesty and force that most fail to notice... to leave the safety of the shore to wade into your waters is worth knowing you... to know your currents, your strength, surprise bends and falls... to know that there are more wonders yet to be revealed... I would swim in your currents and eddies... I would learn where you would go... and see all the more beauty in you because of it...

The Man in the Station

Building...

To The Lady on the Train,

I know where we have been. I know where we are. I know the limits.

But I know that within all that, there is a limitless bright future for us... I want to build with you... in all the ways that we can.

The Man in the Station

Beside you...

To The Lady on the Train,

Though we may ride on separate rails and there is time and distance between us, I am beside you.

Always...

The Man in the Station

Grey Evening...

Angel,

As promised by the day, the rains have come. The city air is pregnant with the smell of wet pavement and the splashing sounds of tires in the rough rutted roads. Small rivers run down either sides of the streets - the asphalt shedding the water like the back of a giant black snake. 
These rivers withe their small eddies and puddles run their end into a corner grate. Falling into an underworld labrynth of sewers that we never see... Never consider how vast a network it must be...

Some of the rain will be sponged up by lawns and gardens - the plans already greening with their gratitude for the rain. But most of this water falling on the rooftops and roads will be funnelled under ground.. These little rivers joining all of the other little rivers... All flowing out to the lake that this city is built on the shores of...

The two natural rivers that run through this city; the Don in the east and the Humber in the west, will swell with the rain. And they will end at the lake as well - pushing out their charge into the deep grey vastness of Lake Ontario.

The city feels new, clean, fresh... We have been redeemed.. The dirty sins of our city washed in water and our filth absorbed by the lake, our Baptist, the mother of this city.

We are changed by the rain though we do not know why.

Grey Day...

Angel,

Today threatens rain - not the violent thunderstorm with black clouds, lightening and thunder that rattle through your body. Today does not promise anything that would be so obvious.

Everything is grey - the sun cannot be located in the sky, yet there is light. Tall buildings disappear into a white mist - the low clouds that have settled over the city.

The sounds of the city are loud and muted - carried on a sticky humid breeze. If it were warmer this humidity would be stifling - but in the cool it feels like a caress. In the air are contradictions of light and dark, loud and quiet...

Today is a day that if you want to feel it you have to pay close attention to. It is a whisper. It is a lullaby. Listen to the day... A change is coming.. Soon...

The breeze that you barely feel and do not notice can change your entire world.

It can bring the sound of your footsteps to me. It can carry the scents of you...

Today threatens rain but promises so much more...

Whatever this day will bring... Come what may... I will be thinking of you.

Just Me

The 506

Outside my west facing window, the early morning sky is just starting to fade from black into velvet blue. I can hear the squeal and grind of the metal streetcar wheels as they turn off Dundas onto College. Theses streetcars run all night long shuffling the shift workers, the shiftless, and the party goers. The whining floats out over the rooftops in the still morning air and settles in the tight streets and alleyways. Instead of being annoyed by the sound, by the intrusion of it on my consciousness, I am comforted by it...

This streetcar line that runs between Main Street station in the east and Dundas West station in the west is a line drawn between our old neighbourhoods, our pasts, our childhoods, and the places where we grew up.

The squeal reminds me that there may be time and distance between our lives - a city can be wedged between us, worlds apart - but that there is some undeniable line that runs between our worlds... Though there was no way to know what it was or that it even existed, there it was... Every day that line runs... The way to you and your world... And at any time I might have boarded, ridden the distance, walked your streets... You might have found your way to mine... But it was not the right time yet...

I listen the the turning streetcars turning in the early morning. They tell me that there has always been a way to you, though I did not know it then. And I know that there is always a way to you now. And if ever I lose sight of you, I have only to ride whatever streetcar is sent.

Waking up...

To The Lady on the Train,

I woke with the scent of you still on my skin and the image of you still in my dreams... As I drifted toward awareness I fought the inevitable wakening... I wanted to cling to sleep, cling to the dreams of you where we swam through endless nights of making love, touching, talking... looking into your eyes, brush of cheek, tumble of hair, sigh...I wanted to feel the warmth and press of you on my skin, on my heart, on my soul...You have imprinted yourself on me, like no other... I feel like I should be afraid, that I am exposing something very vulnerable... but I will not hold back from you - I will bear all to you...

I had you with me in my dreams...I will have you with me through the day... Awake, I can still feel your press...

The Man in the Station

Silence in the dead of night...

Even in the silence that hangs in the deepest night there are sounds that shape a place. The bones of the earth, of this house, and of this bed groan and creak in their own unique and mysterious tongues. The furnace coming alive - motor, air, heat... the tick of expanding metal. The sound of the fridge turning off with a rattle.

I turn in my bed, my own bones making their unique sounds - the knees and elbows and shoulders creak or crack. The sheets whisper against my bare skin and remind me of the warmth they hold. My breath is an even rhythm... my heart beat more felt than heard...

I lay in my bed, listening to the silence of this place,  and cannot help but think of you... I imagine the silences that surround you. I wonder if your sheets whisper with the same voice against your skin. Is the sound of your own breath familiar and foreign to you? 

I can imagine the sounds of you... hear you turn in the dark, drawing a leg up to cradle... A sigh... The rhythm of your heartbeat..

I imagine the sounds of you in this place with me... I listen to the sounds of your silence.