I wait for spring—
When days run long,
While hope emerges
Green from the earth
Warmed by a sun
Who knows the spell
A gentle warmth brings
With a smoothness of breath
Taken in the calmness of colors
Basking in the light of a day
Nourished by winter’s ashes.
In the stillness of days between,
The willows long to reach across the stream,
Breaching distance impossible.
Without the breeze,
Their branches hang in solitude,
Their leaves nearly tears,
Longing drips with want heavy in the air
Until finally—thunder—
Lightning— A breeze teases,
Limbs reaching,
Almost, nearly touching—
And then the wind begins,
Whipping one direction,
Then another, almost swirling,
Limbs, leaves touch
Across the stream
Solitude breached.
Give me a minute.
Let me have another cup of coffee,
Will you?
Before I slosh on after,
Down the trail–
Again– maybe.
You say, a guard now stands there,
Of the newer variety,
Who advises of the locust thorns,
The kind that pierces the shoe
And can go straight into your foot?
Could have used that advice–
Once or twice
Maybe thrice
In life.
But now I’ve rubbed my thumbs
Over the sharp tipped thorns of regret
Until callouses formed.
Then I moved on to other
Fingertips until bloody, raw,
Proving to myself the sharpness of thorns.
So now, you say this stony guardian warns
Of all the thorns
Along the paths and trails?
Might this guardian advise of a thornless trail?
I really wouldn’t care, but the soles of my feet
Are without callous, and I’d like to keep them so.
Send me down a muddy, sloshy trail where
I might just fall and break my neck.
That would be simply fine,
If the soles of my feet
Remain as soft and unmarred
as a baby’s behind.
Image from Shutterstock
Pieces of her broke in the waves,
Searching for wildness
In this place she always went to be alone.
She walked along this shore a thousand times
In the dawn and the dusk
As if they were quantities unknown,
And thus, in them, she could discover some truth,
Some faith, some charity, some hope for herself.
Who knew? It had worked before.
She’d walk toward the town with something—
Some small bit piece replenished.
Besides–
She’d always heard salt was healing,
So she figured she’d rub it in her wounds.
But bloody red and raw
She walks still wounded, broken,
Along the wildness,
Yet not touching it.
Freedom elusive.
She can not find what she lost.
Her wounds chains,
Binding her still
To things she knew illusions.
She waits for the friction of salt
To rub away the chains.
She walks toward the seals in the surf
And on toward the whales in the deep,
Searching for truth or faith or charity
In the wildness of the sea.
I wanted to run among the wild ones.
Live with them among the mountains.
Rub muzzle against muzzle.
Eat sweet grasses.
Enjoy golden warmth upon my back.
Let my soul and spirit rest
Among the trees with the wild ones.
But it was not to be.
My heart could not slow enough
To contain their peace.
And so, I sought the white ones at the sea.
They crashed about restlessly.
Truly wild they were, as they raced continually.
Their cacophonous pacing furious, relentless.
Yes, these wild white stormy ones were in keeping
With my heart, a raging irregular and brutal pace.
Image from Dreamtime.com
The science of flight
Broken, stripped down
Into the realism of words.
The dryness of what happens:
Lift and torque,
Drag and propulsion—
All things the ancients
Dreamed of mastering.
And so, we moderns have:
The smallest of Cessna,
The most enormous Airbuses,
The cavernous military transports,
Such technology and science
To destroy the magic.
Until watering the garden
On a summer evening
And turning to see
A tiny green hummingbird
Stick out his chest in pride
At having mastered
Standing still
While flying.
Through wisps of thin streaming clouds,
The last full moon of the decade
Looked down on me and seemed to nod.
Why? I’m not sure.
I thought and tried to puzzle it out.
The decade? Perhaps.
Did this last full moon wish me
To think about this decade?
What ten years can bring:
A wife battling ovarian cancer
For her life and loosing;
Loosing myself along the way
And finding me and loosing me
All over again; A profession left in disgust
For the pleasure of retirement;
A daughter nearly lost and then regained.
Talk about water swirling slowly down the drain.
But it swirls no longer. The ground leveled.
The tub fills. I have finally grown into my skin.
I look to the moon again and she seems to nod
Once more. From somewhere, I smell a faint
Scent of narcissus. Yes, it would be easy.
Play the fool once more and return to that place,
find beauty and comfort In blue skies
And soft grasses by mountain lake,
Breathing in the sweet narcissus scent,
Pretending for a little while
That everything offered was true.
But brimstone to my soul would it be.
Leave the blue skies, the soft grasses, the mountain lake,
The scent of narcissus behind.
This I must do or my soul I would lose.
Changed, evolved.
Everything
Used to be a verdant green
Of fresh, newborn spring.
Evolved into a chilly thing,
Brown, dried husks,
A few barely clinging
To a tree in late autumn,
Early winter.
Seems something, someone
Sucked the hope out,
Fed on it as if it were life’s blood,
And everything is drained, a leftover hull
Of what once was. But everything goes on.
As if all is the same and nothing
Is gone.
At sunrise over water,
Remembering a dream
Of finding ecstasy
Within tears,
Things neither given
Nor felt in years,
Linked by all the fears
To form decades of a life
Lived like a stranger
In my own skin.
I have stood
Since the dawn
At this ocean’s edge
Waiting, waiting.
And now at noon
The rain begins.
Fierce pelting blows
Washing me clean
Of all I know
Or dare to dream.
For living continues
Within my own skin
Blurred edges of a winter morning
A dawn leached of color
Where silence and stillness walk
Holding hands
A moment captured waking
Lasts
As warmth fades
And coldness settles in
To stay.
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