---

The clouds have covered the moon, my love.

The mists have clouded my path.

The sun is blinding the road ahead

and I’m lost in this lovely, green strath.

 

And here I would stay

for eons of days

if I had you

along for the walk

But my songs,

they do echo

‘gainst walls of the trees

and birds in reply only mock.

 

Where did you go? My love? My lover?

When did you wander away?

My muse, she is with you, and I ache to recover

the stars that still shine in the day.

 

---

 

---

There are islands
in personal journey –

respite rocks in salted waters –

 

when gales calm to breezes
and bring cool, sun-stained air on their backs,

 

when the sand gives way only enough to slow your pace
but does not fall out from under you,

 

when you can hear the beach-bound waves,

shh,

shh,

shh,

here is a new tide I bring,

shh,

 

where a smile comes freely
without payment –
without pain –
and your brow is loose and milky.

 

In this reprieve

I breathe

and love, still.

 

 

The seas will rage again, I know
and in them I shall swim.
’Tis how I’ve been made –
to rudder, to row,
and navigate oceans within.

---

---

At some time or another in your life,
you will know that you’re unwanted –

– by a friend that moved on.

– by a child that wants to do it on their own.

– by a lover that has outgrown you.

– by a belief that needs more faith than you have in it.

 

and the feeling, at first, is a painful vacancy;
an urgency to cram space
and rearrange a room
that has no furniture in it.

but if you breathe,
and feel yourself
from the inside out
with all the bits and bobbles
you possessed when you were

still

wanted

you may see,
in this precious and unnerving place,
that you have the opportunity

to saturate emptiness

with the version of yourself
that you could not be
while you were busy filling
someone else’s wants of you.

there is no furnishing to better this room.
there is no addition to your ingredient
that would make you taste sweeter
or more complex.

we are all of us wanters and unwanted,
waiting to want and be wanted again,

and though made

whole,

are seldom seen

as such.

Where want has wilted,
I plant seeds of knowing and peace.

---

---

The sumac is turning to burnt sienna
and the golden rod glows in the green.
Summer is bidding for open eyes
that all her last splendors be seen.

 

She calls out in the evening,

“Our time is fading, the heat in me cools,
the pace of our passion is slowing,
and temperance rules.

 

In the breath of fall, I embrace you;
in my old, loving leaves we shall play.
Once more I’ll look upon you;
will you look upon this day?

 

Will you recall the sweat I placed upon your skin?
Will you remember my cool springs that relieved?
Will you enter the swaddle of winter
and forget not what we,

in summer,

believed?

 

Hear the cranes – how they cry in parting.
Hear how the locust sings.
Hear the poplars rustle in season’s end –
the death and beauty it brings.

 

I shined on you as best I could, my love,
though suffered you some storms
I know.

I shared with you the best I had, my love,
in all my altered forms,
you know.

 

The air is changed,
and I along beside.
Autumn calls me home again
wherein the great hall I shall reside,

storing warmth at the hearth
for another season-

another season-

another season-

 

and in new spring rain
with new fire, and new eyes
I hope to see you again.”

 

---

Suddenly, today,
I don’t miss you, anymore.

There is no itch in my finger tips.
There is no ache under my skin.
There is no prayer pressed ‘tween my lips
because I feel you
close to me;
I hear you coming in.

There is no wonder
at where you may be;
I hear your voice –
your confident breath  –
from the inside
out
of
me.

 

How could I miss
what has drawn near?

How could I not dance to your tune?

Have you had me all this time?

Were you always in this room?

Hello.
Hello again.
It’s been a long time,
but I’ve been made to know you.
Hello.

---

---

There was a time when rest would have been prudent,
when sleep could have nursed these ails
and repaired these strong and strained muscles.

Heart muscle pumping
so fiercely,
so long,
with so much coursing through
those delicate tissue chambers,
pump in –
pump out –

machinery
of breath and blood,
of life and love.

 

Could I have thought clearer?
Could I have blinked cleaner?
Could I have held more weight?
Could I have run farther?
if I’d claimed a moment of repose
in the days
that just flew past
like barn swallows,
chaotic and sharp,
in turns and juts,
darting from their nests,

but always on course.

When you’ve been up this long,
the length of up lays you down.

When you’ve stayed up this late,
it turns to “early,”
and you know it’s too late to sleep;

the glow-

the warmth-

up.

coming

is

sun

the

 

The eye that sees cannot close
against so many colors at dawn.

Today does not return it’s predecessor
nor will tomorrow delay for now.

I wake, without sleep, I wake.

 

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