Month: February 2023

Like Old Photographs

Image courtesy of expertphotography.com
If only life could be lived 

in shades of black and white

like those in old photographs

where shades of sepia 

and the spectrum of white to black blur 

edges, cracks, crags,

definitions, delineations

to softened

airbrushed edits

of reality

leaving me able to fall

from the greatest of heights 

to land softly

upon a loosely inflated mattress

no bruising, no bone breaking, 

no soul shattering hard surface landings

in a life lived in shades of black and white

and sepia 

where the sharp edged colors of harness

wash away.

Seeking

image courtesy of WP library 
I fled from days

of standing under your patchwork roof

offering no protection from the rain,

least of all my own rain pouring out of me,

threatening always to drown in its leave taking.



So I learned to float, flowing along the curves

others presented in my efforts to find

time, love, home, 

the back roads where berry bushes 

grow in abundance.

Yet I never tasted,

never picked any berries,

fresh off the branches.

Instead, I always found

the snakes hidden, lying in wait

beneath the berry bushes,

for the seeking,

and I, always bitten,

never learned my lessons

of serpents who lay in wait,

or the lessons of Eve,

I still sought,

in spite of the venom,

in spite of the bites—



I found the rains pouring out of me

once again

to travel on 

seeking

Prism






Image is my own





washed clean





in orange sunsets





drenched by





lavender sunrises





so the dust





and the grime





can no longer





cling inside or out





of a me





freed, freed





of all of you





I am the prism





of beauty





I always was





yet never was





with you