*Jon O’Donohue* On its way through the innocent night, The moth is ambushed by the light, Becomes glued to a window Where a candle burns; its whole self, Its dreams of flight and all desire Trapped in one glazed gaze; Now nothing else can satisfy But the deadly beauty of flame. When you lose the feel For all other belonging And what is truly near Becomes distant and ghostly, And you are visited And claimed by a simplicity Sinister in its singularity, No longer yourself, your mind And will owned and steered From elsewhere now, You would sacrifice anything To dance once more to the haunted Music with your fatal beloved Who owns the eyes of your heart. These words of blessing cannot Reach, even as echoes, To the shore of where you are, Yet may they work without you To soften some slight line through To the white cave where Your soul is captive. May some glimmer Of outside light reach your eyes To help you recognize how You have fallen for a vampire. May you crash hard and soon Onto real ground again Where this fundamentalist Shell might start to crack For you to hear Again your own echo. That your lost lonesome heart Might learn to cry out For the true intimacy Of love that waits To take you home To where you are known And seen and where Your life is treasured Beyond every frontier Of despair you have crossed. --- from *To Bless the Space Between Us*