To Concede
Becoming Elation
0402.2025
(a four-part meditation on love and transcendence)
I
My last love ripened,
then withered on an unrequited vine,
and it was the fruit of that vine—
filling the cup of love’s want—
that left me drunk on its final flame.
I carry its want—still alive with its need—
pressing hard on fragile conviction,
threaded with memory and history,
leaving my longing loud and alive,
buried beneath the ache of this heart.
⸻
II
Who knows what love is?
Perhaps to know
is to feel it, first—
unimagined and strong—
the one pull toward a life worth living.
Perhaps it’s to touch the sun
and die by its fire-beam and heat—
to fall to the wound of its golden arrow.
Or maybe it’s the long, exhausted sigh
while held in the arms of night,
then letting the moon’s kiss
set you free from yourself.
Perhaps it is death’s own moment,
when your soul is mirrored—
or losing time, entangled in atoms,
suspended among the stars.
⸻
III
Never knowing love,
I’ll become a honeybee—
carrying life from flower to flower,
especially the dying and loveless
beneath dry soil and fading fields.
The ones reaching, barely breathing,
pressed beneath the weight of stone—
oh, cruel journey of life!
to let their lives begin in shadow
while being beautiful,
but unseen and ignored.
⸻
IV
Let me be the bee
that finds the beauty in flowers
during their time of dying—
so my elation survives
in another form of love—
a kind worth carrying
in the grace of surrender
and purpose.
m.c.f.
❦
Love Without Ego
I Still Do
(for no one, and you)
I love with a silence blooming in bones—
My love asks for nothing,
but still lights a lamp in the dark
in case you want to come home.
I love you like a prayer
when nobody is listening—
even when you vanish,
and the leaving is drowned in your absence.
I love you when your words turn to shadow,
or are lost on the air,
and your care stops calling my name.
You don’t have to earn it.
I never meant to give it.
It arrives like sun in the spring—
slow, warm, and impossible to refuse.
There are still pieces of you in my life—
the tone of your voice
curled around a word,
the way you linger
at the edge of your own heart.
You may never hold my heart in your hands again.
You may never say my name out loud.
I may never hear you.
But I hope,
when the noise grows quiet
and people around you forget to listen—
you remember how once,
you were deeply seen
and entirely loved
by a rose who asked for nothing.
I loved you.
Not to possess.
Not to be chosen.
But because some loves
arrive like stars—
brilliant, distant,
and mean to be carried,
not kept.
And I still do.
m.c.f.
Photo, 2024, m.c.f.
Transition Into…
Goodbye. Love.
0329.2025
Goodbye, wild and unnamed love—
Age, with its hush, unclasps
the trembling flower
that opened in my youth,
arrogant with need,
drenched in want.
It bloomed
like tuberose—too rich, too ready—
whenever a golden-limbed boy
bent his gaze toward mine.
I see the last of you now:
your face, a soft pomegranate,
those quiet, knowing eyes,
that mouth and those brows
etched in my own reflection.
And I think—
we were meant to live
as one body,
woven in peace.
But the saltwater spoke.
It told the truth:
this kind of love
requires building.
So I unfastened my hands
and let this kind of love drift.
And still,
I know—
something greater waits.
A love unnamed,
needing no mirror.
m.c.f.
On Quiet Surrender
Night’s Mercy
0328.2025
The night’s splendor
pours through the window—
its silver secret sends me off
upon a sleepy sea of sorrow…
and I surrender gently,
like petals drifting,
learning to float
where I’d drown.
— m.c.f.
The Stars
Us, Astrologically, Astronomically
on elemental opposites
0328.2025
You come in quiet—
air and earth,
cool head,
measured thoughts,
a voice that waits
before it speaks.
I arrive as flame—
fast,
bold,
without warning.
I light what I feel
and walk through it.
You watch the flames.
I move with them.
Still—
my Venus
knows your rising,
calls to you
without sound.
We orbit close—
fire fed by wind,
truth held in silence,
closeness
without need.
Opposite signs,
but something fits—
a click,
a spark,
a pull that says:
don’t change,
just be close.
m.c.f.
A Study In Goodbye
Soft Exit Tactic
0328.2025
You don’t vanish—
you drift.
A pause lengthens,
warmth thins,
messages arrive late—
their meaning lost.
You choose silence
like chiffon—
folded neatly,
placed just so.
The silent cut,
of unsaid words.
You ask to meet
knowing I can’t,
as though forgetting
is easier
than refusing.
(Maybe for you, true.)
I’ve read the script—
at first,
the slow retreat,
the soft descent,
the affection turns static
without a storm.
You’d rather fade
than fall,
slip the tether
without warning
or respect.
No reckoning,
nor flame—
Just distance
disguised as time.
But I feel you
exiting the room
while you smile.
I know
how goodbye sounds
when it tries
not to be heard.
m.c.f.
On Some Bonds
The Red Thread
0328.2025
You once took a photo—
of two needles pierced,
a single red thread
running through their bodies.
I imagine the needles are us—
and the thread,
the binding of our hearts and heads.
(It makes sense.
I’ve often felt
we share blood.)
But then something broke—
and now you’re gone.
When the thread snapped
from the house of my heart,
I learned
how sorrow can be stitched.
No one loves you enough
to see how the knots
hold us tighter
than clean seams can.
(Woe.)
Your life pulses in mine.
Your lessons linger.
The love I hold
is now something else—
I lost you
and understood:
what I desire
cannot be held
in time’s fist.
And so I love the world—
most of all,
you—
freely,
with enough peace
to let your heart unfold
its wings and wander.
Without hope—
but for the little seed
hidden in winter soil,
hoping she’s strong enough
to rise and open
when love’s voice
calls her home.
I carry you still,
and pray too much—
it’s your voice I hear
when the thaw begins.
m.c.f.
Another Love
An Inheritance
0314.2025
Who makes love an occupation?
Maybe the eternally lonely,
maybe the motherless ones—
but must love be accompanied?
Isn’t birth alone enough to make it whole?
The flower’s tissue unfolds because of a kiss from the sun—that is love.
And the ocean casts its diamonds to the day, and all eyes can see—that is love in two gifts.
Then the earth fashioned us,
so our ears are mated to the songs of birds, insects—
and the lovemaking of trees and wind,
which fills us with such longing—
we are her children, and this is truly love.
m.c.f.
For My Beloved
Beloved:
0110.2025
You are the luminous beam
Born from the heart of the sun -
While others see promise written in the stars,
I feel your laughter, beloved,
Your smile blazing through
The quietest night, beloved,
Your voice calming every
Trembling fear, beloved—
Oh yes—
My beloved is the purest ray of light
Guiding me through the long and darkest night.
M.C.F.
Another Love
0525.2024
Love is the daybreak
Embracing us and
Kissing eyes open -
And it’s the dark before
To warn or lead us home -
It’s the desire for solitude,
Where love is the teacher in silence -
Who else is walking love’s dark path?
Who else hears the music of love’s
Little black birds singing, singing
Their notes hung heavy in your head?
This might be the fiercest,
Most honest of all love -
It wants for nothing
But to bring us peace.
m.c.f.