Breaking Cover OR Making Sense of Sensibility

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

This poem has appeared on he blob before but was removed and revised after receiving few visitors.

There are various ways of breaking cover. What nicer way for two gay people to come out to each other than with a kiss under the stars ... whatever their sex, sexuality or socio-cultural-religious background? As for letting everyone else know, it is rarely if ever easy, but worth every heartbeat as well as any tears along the way...

In some countries and home environments, gay people just have to seize the day and trust that a time will come that everyone recognises and accepts that the heart is a free country, and our difference don't make us different, only human.

Neither love nor life itself is rarely anywhere near as simple as we would wish, if only because we human beings insist on making everything so complicated with reference to various socio-cultural-religious dogma written in tablets of stone rather than engaging with contemporaneity, and trying to understand human nature, less rushing to judgement and / or  seeing its complexities as an excuse for hate crime, and worse ...

BREAKING COVER or MAKING SENSE OF SENSIBILITY

We lay on the ground,

barely touching, the only sound,

owls hooting;

your piano hands as if playing

the stars as we debate

women from Venus, men

from Mars

One toe brushing mine,

letting me share your body heat;

your eyes, winking like stars

as I clutch at your every word

like a man drowning;

you edge closer, thigh nestling

against mine

I'm stroking your shirt

while you're talking, unaware

of my being tossed about

on waves of desire, longing

to shut your mouth

with my lips, explore your body

implore your love

All the sounds of night

a serenade for lovers, caressing

each secret part of us

as I can but cling to every timbre

of your voice like straws

in a summer breeze, Cassiopeia

blinking back tears

Eventually, you wearied

of words, seemed to count stars

while I continued

to chase pipe dreams till the owls

broke cover, flew over us

as if at Earth Mother bidding,

a blessing of sorts

Enchanted, we shared

the owls' graceful flight across

silvery meadows

of night into a heart of darkness

that struck us both,

as lonelier than our lying there

needing each other

Slowly, tearfully, you turned to me,

kissed me, and we made love ...

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004, rev. 2011

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears under the title 'Breaking Cover' in The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004.]