Not Just Back for Coffee
My love,
My soul and your soul
Are very old friends,
Older than the Earth,
Older than the ancient stars.
Together we rode the Big Bang
Into existence in ecstasy, when time began.
Together we watched the first star
Light up the dimness
Of the afterglow of creation,
And saw the Milky Way
Coalesce into a hundred billion
Firey balls of light.
We saw the sky on Earth
When it first turned blue,
After a million years of rain
That filled the oceans.
We saw the first fish jump,
And the first tree grow.
Since then we’ve often been apart,
Playing different rolls, in different acts,
Of God’s play, that we helped to write,
Learning from its myriad scenes,
Growing in a thousand different ways
In life’s drama school,
Experiencing millions of
Wonderful, exquisite things,
So we would be
Different from each other at last,
And could come back together,
And I would be fascinating to you,
And you to me,
So we could be
Life’s gift to each other,
To explore and wonder at,
And have the adventure of
Coming to understand and love.
We are so much the same
We sometimes seem to share a brain,
But now also different enough
That we can tell each other
A thousand stories,
And still be keen for more.
But it wasn’t always so —
Back after that first giant
Orgasm of creation,
When the first stars silently
Lit up around us,
And woke us from our
Deep relaxing sleep,
We were actually…
Very bored with each other!
We were just two reflections
Of one self,
And had nothing to share,
Like a worm cut in two by a spade,
One half growing a head, the other a tail.
So we decided to go our separate ways,
And meet up every billion years or so,
For coffee,
To see if the creation twins
Were different enough yet
To be the lovers and companions
We have always yearned for,
But never found.
Now, ten billion years along,
After forgetting you for aeons,
Suddenly you sail into my life again,
This time amidst a fanfare of unlikely,
But compelling, events,
With all our occult signs aligned,
And say, “I’m back! Remember me?”
Yes, I remember you.
And the deep, ancient longing
That is fulfilled in joy in me
Just by your nearness now,
Without even a gentle kiss,
The transcendence of your presence,
That makes all others pale,
Tells me you are…
Not just back for coffee
This time.
Copyright © Mark Mason, 2009
If you have any questions about this poem, please e-mail me at:
mark@markmason.net, and include the word "Poetry"
in the subject line, or phone me on: (541) 485-3905.
Click here for the website of my book, In Search of the Loving God, which includes three complete chapters from the book:
IN SEARCH OF THE LOVING GOD by Mark Mason