5 Poems by Wayne-Daniel Berard

When I became my love for you

When I became my love for you
my hair was your words standing
on no end, my skin was your breath
in and out expanding just enough
contracting not too little, my eye
lids were your touches shading
the overtness opening to
subtleties, and my heart  --
do not even ask about my
heart -- it was your step,
to, fro, closer, farther, obvious,
subtle. Now I am disembodied,
flat, amorphous and stretched,
and my bootless heart goes
nowhere.  Everything is you
but me. To unbecome your
love is to die in reverse.


Aphrodite Finds True Love

It has been forever.
gods, heroes all sought me
but none saw me.
looking in my eyes
they saw only themselves
and me straddled across them.
I cut myself
disfigured
but I just grew back;
Eternal Beauty
is Eternal Condescension,
so often taken,
never seriously.
I tried the blind
(Homer, Tiresias)
but I didn't want
to not be seen at all.
could I not be
beautiful and
competent,
exceptional
without exception?
Then you.
Heart as open
as your eyes,
"You are astonishingly
lovely," you said. "You
are also good looking."
"Nothing I could do
with you," you said,
"is as important
as you." I saw a
self mirrored in
your eyes that
none had ever seen,
entirety without
echelon, body
and body of work. Oh
but old self-myths
die hard. "Ask anything,"
I say, hating myself
for saying it. "Wealth,
power, wisdom. Ask.
I'll give it." "An undefended
heart," you answer.
"Yours or mine?"
"Yes," you say.
"Yes," I say.


Sight

I know how it must feel to have no one
I'm almost there, having no one but you.
one word, one slip, one kid with a gun
and I'm one of them, the Finished, the Through.
I hate myself for sleeping next to you
so soundly, grateful when I wake and run
to the bathroom, how can I be
unconscious a minute with you,
every blink a regret if/when the
sight of you passes and
almost becomes here.


 Divorce

Yes
More important
than no longer
extended families
More important
than faith
and the embrace
of its condition
More important even
than you
who I put aside everything
to have yes
More important
than anything.
This.
May you never
need to understand
This.


First

I know the sound
the sun makes
as it rises
I know the note
the soul strikes
as g*d draws
it like a bow
returning to its
violin, the body
I know the stage
whisper with which
everything is
cued each morning.
(I lean across
the bed, kiss
your hair before
going. "Know
you're way home
to me"
you sigh,
you day unbreak,
you night sans fall.


Bionote

Wayne-Daniel Berard teaches English and Humanities at Nichols College in Dudley, MA. Wayne-Daniel is a Peace Chaplain, an interfaith clergy person, and a member of B’nai Or of Boston. He has published widely in both poetry and prose, and is the co-founding editor of Soul-Lit, an online journal of spiritual poetry. His latest chapbook is Christine Day, Love Poems. He lives in Mansfield, MA with his wife, The Lovely Christine.