---

∴

how can i feel you
‘round that corner?

i can’t see you –

but i know you’re there –

and i take comfort.

 

strange.

isn’t it?

 

there is a book
written between us,

read in glances
and unintended,
brushing grazes.

i won’t presume to know the end of your pages
nor would i think i’ll be privy to them,

still,
i’m glad for this little chapter.

it’s pastoral and kind
and brings to mind
the solace that can be found

in strange places
and curious faces;

but yours, so lovely,

in the sea of them all.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

look, my love,
how rosy hues rise up from the east
and bathe the sky
in persimon and peach.

the long, violet shadows
that moments ago
disguised us
in cimmerian silence,
grow smaller
and closer to our feet,

where we might,
with giant steps,
surpass them.

·

look, my love,
how i can see you, now
by this light of morning,
where the air is jubilant and glass
because it has no doubt
that the promise
of this day

is.

 

we
boned,
scraggle-branched,
and unadorned trees
have blended too long
into the earthen clay,
and do now declare our height,

blazing out from ember ash
as the sun jumps up
to meet us.

 

look, my love,
how the bud does pop
within the branch.

still bound by dulled and dusted bark
but auspicious,
like chicken skin
that is pledged a feather.

 

i know, my love
that spring is coming,
and with it,
all the verdant verve we are
and have within us.

with every dawn,
we are closer come
to color.

∴

 

 

---

---

∴

all stars have the tendency to run away
from time to time.

they may begrudge their coordinates in the constellations
and seek to make new markers in the heavens.

they might draw,
like fast moving fireflies,
new pictures
held in momentary glow,

traced by their hasty flight,
and forcing brief illumination of an idea
before fading in the night sky
like smoke-puff silhouettes
against the galaxy.

and they confuse the travelers as they go.

so, of course,
it is the duty
of those celestial strongholds
to bring them back home…

 

but how they do this,
o,
it matters.

 

·

 

said the sun to the wayward star:

“look what you’ve done!
you, breaker of astral order!
how the rules were meant for your safekeeping!

insolent star,
you’ve loosed Orion’s belt
and ungirded all our strength and beauty.

you, corruptor of composition –
go home!”

and he flashed his fire-y finger
as if to scold,
tsk, tsk.
tsk, tsk.

 

the star that heard this admonition
was shamed,
and forgot her twilight revels,
and regretted the pull they had upon her,
and fell.

blaze and bright elegance
flaring
falling
fading
and gone.

what heat can run so cold
to extinguish the light around it?

 

·

 

said the moon to the capricious star,

“my sweet,
your light has traveled far,
and i have watched your scintillant dance.
yes, you must be tired from all that effort, dear,
and how i long to hold you again.

do you recall the twinkling games we play?
could you come home and with me, stay?

look, how the gowns of Cassiopeia
are wanting in your space,
and Cygnus’ trumpet
waits to herald your return!

my love,
my light is waiting,
reflected and held,
in canyons and shadow.

i am undaunted
and ripe with hope.”

 

and the star that heard this lovesong
did stir the universe with gladness
and took up her minuscule throne
in the sea of all those other
disobedient stars
once again,

enticed by compassion
and sight.

∴

 

 

---

 

(or “What I Was”)

 

---

∴

i was once so very much
and glad to be.

i was.

i was.

i was

the teacher
the cleaner
the bill payer
the party planner
the medicine feeder

the cook
the baker
the candlestick maker
the tailor
the story time teller

the hair cutter
the laundry folder
the bath giver
the breast feeder
the soil weeder

the garden planter
the fire-starter
the midnight rocker
the morning walker
the curriculum creator

the disciplinarian
the librarian
the tree ornamenter
the apple gatherer
the button counter

the dawn waker
the snow-globe shaker
the spirit guider
the mind widener
the movie goer

the music player
the card writer
the present wrapper
the wound dresser
the stuff binder
the missing toy finder

 

but i was alone in all these things i was

and the heart that gave so much
so long

gave way
and
has gone

 

in wilted submission
to a culture
stronger than i have strength to be.

 

i bow like the overgrown head of a sunflower,
weighted by the seeds it carried,

dropping

dropping

what is left.

 

petals pointing to the earth,
like floppy ears,
listless and left,
and trying to collect
the memory of warmth
from happy suns at midday.

∴

 

 

---

 

∴

how blank and vast and white and daunting
is a clean paper.

i have seen many,
marked with red
and crumpled,
smudged with lead
and stained with coffee
or unclaimed crumbs
that fell from the cake.

i have read some
that were incomplete,
that engaged me to the end
and left me turning them

over

and

over

and

over,

certain there must be more.

 

but there wasn’t.

 

and i wondered what was supposed to have been.

 

i have studied several that started
and scratched.

and started
and questioned.

and started again
and then trailed off…

incomplete
and possible
but wanting

because the pen went dry
while i was thinking.

 

i have poured over a few
that barely said a word
yet said so much,
i had to read them over

and

over

and

over

and

over,

to be certain i’d remember;

and sometimes
i do.

·

but this page today,
it weighs more than the rest
and i can’t be satisfied.

because i know it will never say
all that i have to say –
or could –
or should –

but i will try

i will try.

∴

 

 

---

---

∴

i am always puzzled and delighted
by the ways and hows
i find home.

it’s this fleeting,
flooding,
overwhelming

yes

of belonging
that surges forward from my
recesses
to my senses

and always in the most surprising moments –

and when i’m not thinking about “home” at all –

 

while i purchase a rug,
or smell the scented ghosts of yesteryear
that haunt the strange shops i pop into,
or accidentally sit in just the way
i sit when i’m safe
and forget to be afraid
for a time.

then a spate of home
comes rushing in like a deluge
of comforts
and nourishments
and secret held treasures
from my father to me.

 

but what a fleeting glee.

 

for no walls contain it.
no control retains it.

 

home,

like sunsets
and shooting stars
and perfect harmonies
and genuine laughter
and romantic love
and gentle rains

and

the

perfect

word,

 

is that allusive
soul spectre
and precious phantasm
that reminds me
only
of what i miss
and strive to finally find

in the end.

∴

 

 

---

---

∴

o, to laugh with you tonight

would be

my heart’s desire

.

 

but all that fantasy

will stay a smile on my cheek

while i wait.

 

who knew waiting took so long?

 

there are things i can study

to pass the time:

 

the bark of an over-leaning branch.

 

a pile of snow left too high.

 

there are things i can do

to occupy.

 

there is so much

we can do

without laughing

 

but why?

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

to be in tune with the wind,
one must listen to it howl.

one must observe how it
bends the boughs about it
and suffer the leaves to fly.

one must stand amidst
while it swirls and whips
and bursts
in rhythmless beats
against you

because the wind,
with senseless mission,
brings with it
new seasons and skies.

to be in tune with the wind,
one must batten down hatches
and sturdy the branches,
lest the precious be lost
and the delicate break.

one must cease spitting curses
that simply fly back in one’s face.

one must listen to voices
carried upon it.
for the wind did not start
just for you.

and many have added
their wisdom
and protest;
the lessons it teaches aren’t new.

to be in tune with the wind
one must accept it’s arrival,
for the heavens are ripe
with transition

collecting the seeds
that are carried thereon,
sing loudly and add
to the voice coalition

 

and plant

 

when the winds have died down.

∴

 

 

 

---

 

∴

i was once told that our true calling
is found
when we take our greatest talent
and employ it
to serve the world’s greatest need.

i would add
that at the heart of all this,
is love
and conception.

talents are not always chosen
and always need maturation to be fruitful,
but they are readily ignited
if they can only find the spark.

·

love, unconsumed,
like talent, untested,
is a painted china plate,
displayed
and over-rested.

·

did you know that when the sperm
makes contact with the egg
a FLASH happens
at the exact moment of inception?

it has to do with zinc,
i think.

it’s like these two,
separate,
powerless things
collide
and create a fluorescent
burst
of creation,

and a third,
more robust thing,
becomes.

the two,
as long as they remained
singular bodies
were only that,
short-lived
and striving,
but once combined,
were consumed
and multiplied upon themselves
in endless and prolific
abundance.

i think our individual talents
and our collective needs
resemble that union, too.

and that love –

of one’s own gifts
of one’s neighbor

– is the only thing
that can bring them
together

and thus,

make us all

anew.

∴

 

 

---