The Story of Us

I was a hurricane,
although I thought I was a ship,
to give passage, to give
a romance trip,
where instead there was
a swirling gyre
of loneliness
trying to hold her
within my eye;

She was a typhoon,
blown far from home -
she was fun, she was exciting,
she was wild,
and she thought I was her man -
she judged this at a glance -
but I was still a child.

All our winds fed into
each other -
we were fast, we were fleet,
we were crazy for each other;
she had me beat.
But in all the chaos
of our situation,
blown hither and thither,
I made empty on the promises
she hoped I’d deliver.

Yet we were married
in the maelstrom,
and we sired a child -
in the middle of our tempest,
blowing raging and wild.
And she was a beauty,
she was perfect,
she was the nectar of the gods.
But she was borne into our storm -
and those are terrible odds.

We thought we were sailing,
we thought we could be happy,
not seeing all the heat
was feeding so heavily
the thunderous towering clouds
which circled our heads,
which darkened our eyes,
which rained on our bed.

Our child grew older,
we loved her so much.
Then we gave her a brother,
another she could touch.
And the storm seemed abated,
the squall quieter in our ears
and we tried and we tried
to work hard, allay our fears.

The radio was playing -
she liked pop songs
by young women;
I was silently rehearsing
It Ain’t Me, Babe
by Bob Dylan.
And the whipping winds blew in,
whipped wildly the shutters
and the music was steadily drowned out
by the water, inching higher up us.

There’s no rest out on
the open sea,
so expansive, so huge;
and all the problems
which once seemed like steady rain
seemed now a deluge,
and they came, and they came.
No use pitching out this vessel -
it will just sink again.

The boat we thought we’d captained
was rocked and was worn.
We looked back on all the heartache
and realised we were the storm.
All along, we fed each other
in the worst possible way
and where we needed sunshine
all we had to give was rain.

Yet we see now,
through the other side,
through the calm inside the eye,
that it’s possible to ride this out
if we work together - really try.
And come out of the haze
to an endless blue sky,
rainbows festooning the heavens,
tall grey anvils far behind.

Sure, there will be dark skies ahead,
and beneath us we’ve left wrecks,
but perhaps the things that haunt us
can rescue us in the end.
Perhaps we can shake the trembling hands
of the ghosts which fill our pasts
and meet them as our friends,
our friends, at long last.