*Winter Rain*
Winter storm breezes
Rattled the remaining leaves
On the cold-foretelling oaks,
The sound like sleet on windows.
The rain started.
But only a few miles and a few degrees
Separate water
And ice.
Winter storm breezes
Rattle the remaining leaves, leaving
An ice coat slipped on to windward
As sleet hisses onto windows.
*Golden Eye*
The eyes,
That’s what I remember,
The points of gem amber
Looking back at me
In our meeting.
I knew of the magic
This selkie-like shape-shifter knew,
But as the minutes slipped by,
Nothing happened,
Nothing but amber eyes watching.
I waited and I waited,
My eyes blurred in their
Anticipation.
Until only the gem amber face
Of the rising moon
Stood in my gaze.
I knew that golden-eyed Fox
Had fooled me again.
*Generations*
The Snowgeese are gone,
As are the snows, both Northbound,
Until next Autumn.
Geese replaced by Spring’s
Singer’s high-pitched frog love songs
Of warming wantings.
Red maples name-true,
Buds Spring-swollen red again
With the season’s blush.
Goose, frog and maple,
Their hearts all lust toward their
Next generation.
*Treading Water*
White marble clouds
Float above a green sea of winter wheat:
Resting places
Of souls that drowned while swimming
In the deeps of their lives.
Their spent lives
Now drawn skyward by the roots,
Transpired off to God,
Lives with grand plans,
Now exhalations.
We swim in our green sea of life,
Always heading toward an invisible shore,
We might as well swim in circles,
it’s just living, nothing more,
It’s the drowning that we’re told matters.
*Blanket*
In my garden grow
The staples: the foods,
The fruits of need and
Necessity.
In a few rows,
All transit straight,
Weeds are hoed away,
All made ready for the harvest.
And so it has been,
Year by year,
Weeds hoed away,
Harvest after harvest.
And then,
Amidst this old order
Arose the bright chaos
Of un-sown beauty.
Between rows
Of onion and bean
Grew a splash
Of surprise color:
A little cluster
Of blanket flower
Breathing into me and my garden
The love that was missing.
Long I have waited,
For this sign of hope,
This loving relief from the
Year by year toil of the row.
*Who We Are*
We came to this island of freedom
Not as much seeking, as
Fleeing.
We fled from hunger, from hatred,
From fear and from all of the pasts,
Hoping.
We begged, saved, too often stole
To pay for our hope for the future,
Dreaming.
We built the roads,
We built the bridges,
We harvested the food,
Our bodies fueled our future.
And now, a hundred years later,
We live that good-life-dream
Trembling.
A good life lived in fear,
In fear of others, those who now are
Coming.
They are building the roads,
They are building the bridges,
They are harvesting the food,
Their bodies the fuel of our future.
*Summer Times*
I’m summer-lazy,
Watching the sun-moved shadows
Sliding slowly past.
Lives are so finite,
Day by day, night after night,
Time just slips away.
Against me, my cat
Sleeps happily, not concerned;
Old sage that he is.
*Apart*
Apart
May be the way we grow.
Apart
May be what we have to be.
Apart
May be all that there is.
It will be our way:
The way we’ll all end.
So, set me free when I’m ready
But chain me down ’til then,
Hold onto the cords that bind us,
But let them slip when I’m done.
*Apart Again*
There may be only six degrees of separation,
But that which I care about
Is the separation which will keep me from you,
Now and to come.
Apart
May be the way we grow.
Apart
May be what we have to be.
Apart
May be all that there is.
Set me free when I’m ready
But chain me down ’til then,
Hold onto the cords that bind us,
But let them slip when I’m done.
*Writing a Poem*
Who’s there?
I thought
That I heard you sigh.
Why do you trust me
To translate what I see,
What I feel?
How can I put into words
Those things that I see
But barely understand.
Where are the words
To describe the rain,
To describe the moon?
What’s the point, anyway?
Thoughts spoken hide
Feelings unspoken.
When did I get on this path
With a hundred ways to say something?
I’m still tap-tap along, blindly searching:
The soft rain whispered
“Drink me quickly, I’m soon gone.”
Dust barely disturbed.
The veiled moon whispered
“Drink me quickly, I’m soon gone.”
Dreams barely disturbed.
*Writing a Poem, Again*
Somewhere between the night and the dawn
As the fog’s gauzy white sheet was withdrawn
From the land’s alluring curves,
I tried as best I could
To remember the words I heard.
Somewhere between the night and the dawn,
In the hour when The Poet whispers in my ear,
I must choose to either write or remember,
For if I don’t do one or the other,
The inspiration becomes a poem
Heard only by me.
*Mourning Comes*
The forty-nine days have begun:
The time it takes for goodbyes.
And, forty-nine days for the journey,
The journey to circle the world
In a loving embrace:
Farewell and greeting.
In forty-nine days,
The circle will begin again.
As you long to be Long,
Again and again.
*Sickle and Scythe*
With the efficiency
Of a steel blade,
The cold sickle winds
And the slash of raindrop scythes
Cut through the golden leaves
Scattering them on the ground:
They’re now yesterday’s jewels.
With all the efficiency
Of a steel blade,
Summer
Is cut from our memory,
Cold blue sickle,
Raindrop scythe,
A year’s growth is gathered into
Autumn sheaves on the ground.
*Love’s Last Embrace*
Not with the knife
but with the soft
sizzle of a morning dew
did the leaves fall.
Eliot’s whimper is in
the carpeting of the duff
with color.
Goodbye
dear friends.
Gone.
*Two Haiku*
Trees are translucent,
Leaves have abandoned branches
For cold winter winds.
Sparrows in the trees,
Trick the eye back to summer,
Sparrows will leave, too.
*When Winter Comes*
When Winter comes,
Quiet rules the heart as
Night does the day.
And, as the light goes,
The spirit grows
To fill the space
Where the light once was.
When Winter comes,
And quiet rules the heart,
The spirit grows
Without the light,
With no promise but
Faith for Love.