Atmosphere
Merriam-Webster defines ‘engaged’ as:
- Involved in activity: occupied, busy
- Pledged to be married: betrothed
- Greatly interested: committed
- Involved especially in a hostile encounter
- Partly embedded in a wall (an engaged column)
- Being in gear: meshed
I am engaged. I refer to the above definition and engage 2 and 3 particularly, and also 1 and 6, but also occasionally 4.
If you happened to have read an earlier post you will be aware that I was in the US when my younger daughter had an accident. I glossed over my purpose for travelling. Now, with Grace recovering, I think I can reveal that (and I may have already given the game away) I was in the US to propose to Kirsha. Kirsha is American, and she gave up a great deal to move to Tasmania to be with me. So it seemed fair to take her home while I got down on the proverbial bended knee. As the context may also have implied, she said yes. Yay!
The deed was done in New York, where Kirsha has lots of friends. I also, to her satisfying stupefaction, secretly imported a few from elsewhere. We had a celebratory dinner afterwards. Several of Kirsha's best friends collaborated on the dinner, the highlight of which was a table crafted from blocks of ice. This proved to be apropos; New York was in the midst of a heat wave.
A few weeks before, while planning our somewhat one-sided rendezvous, I was preparing a quasi-contract for our mooted marriage on this very iPad in the middle of the night when Kirsha awoke, a rare event indeed, and asked me what I was writing. As a diversion I started writing a poem, and it turned out better than I had any right to expect, given its improbable genesis. I later got local musical polymath Dean Stevenson to turn it into a song. Listen here.
Atmosphere
Most nights I listen to the soft susurrus
As you draw in and process atmosphere
Making it your own and owning me
As I'm surrounded by your exhale.
I breathe for you and your odour
More rich by the nighttime heat
The night chill comforts me
But I sneak some warmth to enhance your ripeness
And then pick you and prick you
Inflate your balloon with my sticky air
I don't see you except as my mind sees you
I don't need to see you
I am invigorated by the darkness
And the darkness within me
I feel you like hot plastic or cold comfort
I feel you and though I am spent
Another deposit wells within me
And burdens me with uncertainty
Sometimes I make a strategic withdrawal
For fear of taking too much
But you need my lust for love and ego
And you tell me so
And I know it to be so
But doubt lingers a little
Not often at all
Sometimes, not often (at all)
I awake, not knowing I slept
And I feel you caressing
My back and kissing
Just as you were
Before sleep overcame me
And made me a victim
Of your relentless
Passion and redeeming
And I am not whole
But I am all I need be
And you are not all
But you are all that I need