Earth and Sky by Lauren Scharhag

I stroke you with the four winds
your grasslands shiver and you
chase me to the horizon on the backs 

of rivers and ocean waves
to that place where we meet and 

yearnings cease. I write you love poems
in rainbows and lightning bolts
prismatic sonnets and jagged
passionate declarations on the violet-

black scroll of my midnight skin 

bring you rare gems of St. Elmo's fire. 

I give you warm rain caresses and 

teasing icy hail patter and the feathery brush 

of snow making your core burn 

that much hotter. sometimes I 

penetrate all the way down to your 

deep places and you burst at the seams
runoff and wet ephemera inundating 

deltas and plains. I empty myself

of everything until I am transparent 

as glass so that I may give you the stars. 

you sigh into my blankness 

make my particles collide 

craving your every leaf and flower
you quake me you make me and I 

envelope you our give-and-take unending 

until I fall and when I do it will be 

into your embrace only into your embrace 

and in your arms you will catch 

heaven’s shards.

Lauren Scharhag is the author of fourteen books, including Requiem for a Robot Dog (Cajun Mutt Press) and Languages, First and Last (Cyberwit Press). Her work has appeared in over 150 literary venues around the world. Recent honors include the Seamus Burns Creative Writing Prize, three Best of the Net nominations, and acceptance into the 2021 Antarctic Poetry Exhibition. She lives in Kansas City, MO. To learn more about her work, visit: www.laurenscharhag.blogspot.com