Love, your face has the salt taste of tears
Stand up, let me hold you completely
And let me know your pale lips
Departure will not make us into the word
Distant

Departure will take me away
Only to revolve and return me to you
The receding crescent moon of heaven
Fetches the sun dreams of rippling gold
So that light-waves of morning
Lift and then fall

Departure gives love tears
To mix our souls in their transient sea
We submerge together a moment
In wet warmth and somewhere
Buoyant tropics heave and then flow

Departure is so sad a union
The bruise of crushing together
And separating in pain
As once ocean and sky
Blended prodigiously
Making love conceive the color blue

Departure is our sorrow
And sorrow is our bond
Everything will be destroyed
Except these fiery waves of the heart
Undulating through us and then beyond

My love, let me hold you completely
Your face has the salt taste of tears
I touch your pale lips
Departure shall not make us into the word
Distant

for Judith Ann Heegler Ray
1-18-98

Click below to hear WJ Ray reading
"To the Rhythm of a Morna" with musical background:
Cesaria Evora, "Pardida", Cabo Verde, Nonesuch Records, 1997


or Click here to Download Mp3

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