*On Cat’s Feet*

Thirty miles to the west, sleet and snow falls, but in that
thirty sleeps the bay, temperer of the January storms.

While snow and ice chill the west, a blanket of fog is pulled
up to our chins. Here by the ocean, all is softened.

Instead of the sound of waves growling across the miles, their
sound today purrs at my feet.

Trees that have lost their leafy softness have found it again
in the soft belly fur of the mist.

The air that was cold cut from crystal is now as soft as the step
of a cat’s paw on moss.

Fog

 

*Winter Storm*

The snow slipped in
(we watched for it all day long)
Like a secret lover slipping out of town,
All that we saw (when we finally saw)
Were the footprints showing where he
Had been but had not been seen.

The snow slipped in,
(a morning surprise for us all)
It left us believing in miracles
(that a lover could leave so quietly).
And leaving us humming
“The Tennessee Waltz”.

*Cutting Edges*

Icy needles
Stabbing at the skin,
Razor winds
Cutting through
Layer upon layer,
Black piercing white,
White slashing black:
It’s winter,
And clouds only
Confuse us with their
Winter-knife soft edges.

*Quiet*

It snowed again today,
That may be insignificant
In a place already white.

It was quiet again today,
That is never insignificant
Where ever you are.

You may not know my silence,
It is the quiet of
A hundred miles.
A hundred miles of quiet
In which a falling snowflake
Can be heard
As it floats by,
So quietly into the white.

It snowed again today.

In one, cold, day’s time,
Silently, the snow has gone.
Sublime departure.

Click: the saddest sound.
The door closing on another
Moment of my life.

*Minik’s Dream*

A green, glass bottle
Carried a message
Across the sea,
Carried a message
Across time.

He was
Stolen, lied to,
Forgotten, ignored,
Thrown away.

It was one green bottle
That launched a
Dream of return
Across ocean,
Across time.

*Praying*

Dirty hands clasped in prayer,
Dusty fingers raised to the sky,
Pleading for the same blessing.

It had been weeks since the last rain, soybeans had
leaves folded upright keeping their remaining moisture
a secret from the sun, the leaves of the corn had long
since rolled themselves into scrolls to preserve their
turgor. Day after day we all were fed on promises of rain.
Empty promises, empty bellies.

Persistence is born of hope,
Survival of hopelessness.

Then it rained, hard enough to pry open the leaves, hard
enough to scrub everything clean: leaves and faith. Green
is the color of life and hope.

Hands spread in alleluia,
Fingers unclenched, claws no more.
Faith restored by the rain.

*Water is Rising*

Rain has been falling
for two days now,
The dry soil finally quenched
after the long, hot dry.

Ditches, ponds and guts
are running full,
Our cup runneth over and over.

Three deer just swam by,
neck deep in a river
Of green: the soybeans have
swollen to full, too.

*Tree of Life*

She asked me,
“Poppa, What is love?”

And I thought and then said
“Love is what you need and want it to be.”

She thought some and said,
“Love is a tree.”

And I thought that she was so right.

And I think of how my tree looks
compared to hers, how they are both
trees, but so different,

About the seasons in which our trees
Grow, about how some trees grow straight
and true, others, well….

Yes, love is a tree.

*Please Moon, A Prayer*

 Walking alone on streets I was familiar with, I suddenly
felt that I was lost. If it weren’t for the moon…

A-spin,
I looked for my map
And saw that I was lost.

Abandoned,
Not a beacon
To guide me home.

Lost,
Old friends gone,
New friends yet to be found.

Please moon,
Hold me
Until I’m home.

 Here’s to new loves and old, warm arms to enfold,
I’m a long, long way from home.

*Leaves In The Wind – A Love Poem*

Winds swirl around me
In their familiar way,
A touch here, another there,
They move me along.

I’m like a leaf:
I’m not going where I wish,
But where I must go:
Where this wind blows me.

Let go, let go,
The wind says.
Open your arms to me,
And just let go.
You can be a leaf in the wind
If you just let go.

*From 35,000 Feet*

Sun on the water,
The surface looks like
An old woman’s skin,
Delicately wrinkled by time:
The time it took for
Wind to circle the earth
And to fold
These gentle veins of time.

Hours
Gained, lost.
Days lost,
Time gone by.

East to West
The days disappear
Until years
Are what we’ve lost.
We always think
That there will be
More to come.

*You, The Moon and I*

When you look at the moon
I see your smile.

When you speak to the moon,
I hear your whispers.

When you cry within the moon’s sight,
I will dry those tears.

Wherever you are,
Wherever I am,
We three will be as one:
You, the moon and I.

*Unrequited Love*

I’ve seen this pattern before, I always hope upon hope that
the story might end differently, but, it never does.

The smell of burning leaves is in the air, that damp, pungent
fragrance that rivals the finest resins in golden thuribles. The
damp-leaf perfume cleanses the mind of the sunny excesses
of and dreams from the summer, it scrubs the memory in
preparation for another year.

Winter waits. Patience is it’s virtue. Broken hearts will mend
during the long, cold nights. “Eventually.”, Winter says.

This autumn is just one more in the long list of annual
love affairs gone wrong, just one more unrequited love to
cry over as I watch it walk toward the door.

*Paths Traveled*

 On the darkest day of the year and at the darkest
part of that day, I was looking into the sky hopelessly
searching the pre-dawn dark for a canada goose I could
hear above me. The goose was flying from east to west,
calling enough that I could easily follow it’s path,
even though it was unseen.

 As I strained to see the goose, the sky lit for a few
seconds with the passage of a low flying meteor. Sparkling,
trailing smoke, the million year old matter grabbed my
imagination as shooting stars always do. My wish: for
another star to fall!

 In a few minutes, I was in my car, headlights and tail
lights blazing my way through the dark, maybe seen only
by the occasional passerby overhead.