*Hummingbird Wings (for Alice)*
When it’s time,
Carry me home
On hummingbird wings.
Give me the courage
Of the hummingbird heart
To guide my now failing steps.
I’ll wait for you, my dear,
Wait for you to join me;
And, with my hummingbird heart
And my hummingbird wings
We will fly away to our
Forever Spring.
*Light in Limbo*
It was a gauzy, white light, the frosted fields
reflecting the early light shining through the flat
filter of low clouds. Depth meant less to the eye
in that light, near was far and far, near.
Light turns us as sure as reins and bit, it is a
twister of feelings, a shaper of thoughts, bender
of perception.
And so it was, ideas, feelings came to mind:
Neither heaven nor hell,
I’m here with no hope or promise,
Lost in this two-dimensional world
Of white light.
I was lost without the washing grace:
Limbo.
A babe alone, all alone in
Neither heaven nor hell.
Limbo is no more (if it ever was). But ideas,
once sown, seem to live forever, waiting for
the chance grow.
*I Dreamt of Snow*
I dreamt of snow;
It was the kind of dream in which
I could smell the snow
(it was a wet snow,
I waded in the aroma),
And, my skin burned from the cold,
And, I could feel the silence
That a soft snowfall summons.
I dreamt of snow
Because of old longings:
Of childhood memories,
Of places I have been,
Of people I have loved,
Of pleasantly passed time
Knee-deep in snow
and now, in dreams.
I dreamt of snow,
And woke smiling.
*The Wish*
Awake or asleep,
It’s all the same:
Dreams and the dust of stars,
They’re what we are.
We stand somewhere between
The day and the night.
The stars in the sky;
Vincent painted them
as they eddied around their pole,
As they swam in his dreams,
In his ocean of night delight.
As the stars were fading for me,
One final streak of light
Dove across the dark-light sky.
I followed it,
Swimming
In the sea of my dreams.
*Apple Blossoms*
April snows are drifting
On the ground under the tree.
Apple blossoms, pink, white.
Spice-perfumed snow falls
On my head, shoulders. Softly;
Apple petal storm.
Bee in a blizzard,
Collects nectar through the gale,
Snow Apple sweetness.
Apple blossoms float,
The earth rises to meet them:
Lovers’ first embrace.
*In the End, Another Beginning*
Soon enough, it’ll be “dust to dust”
For us all,
It’ll be
Back to our starlight beginnings,
Ash by ash,
Atom by atom.
We were born along with the universe
In that Big Bang,
But we’ll return to the stars
In the Big Whisper
As body slowly twines with earth,
The loving earth.
In my garden I’ve cradled the “dust”:
I’ve held my future in my hands,
And I’ve smelled my ancestry there:
Plant and animal both.
It’s never too early to be ready
To go home.
*Where Poppies Grow*
Dark eyes,
Hundreds by hundreds,
Those dark-eyed, red-dressed
Beauties
Watched as we passed by.
Tears filled
Those sad, dark eyes
Not the smiles
That first greeted us
As we passed by.
Oh, here in Flanders
The dark eyes spill their tears
On the breasts
Of those they loved,
Now long passed by.
*Mind’s Eye*
Every idea starts with a blank page,
A clear mind.
Gradually the canvas fills with the color of
Inspiration,
Just as every reality starts with whiteness
But ends in a living splash of color.
A scorching sun rises through humid mist of morning
(The summer-hazed sun, in the shimmering heat
Has an opaline eye).
Drought-dried leaves rattle in the wind
(The rustling of wind through the trees,
Floods a waterfall of whispering leaves).
There is the eye, and there is the heart,
Imagination is the difference.
“Imagination is the one weapon in the war against
reality.” Jules de Gaultier
*New to the Night*
“We never see this many stars”,
They said
As Venus, Jupiter, Antares winked down.
A hint of the Summer’s Milky Way
Still lay in mystery
Even after my hand waved across the sky
Tracing the path.
And then, finding Polaris/North seemed a miracle
To someone unfamiliar with dark nights.
A few days later… home,
I felt at ease in the ocean of distant light
Where two bears stood beside
A milky river of stars
Eternally waiting for a fish to jump.
The scorpion’s heart throbbed red,
Two sister planets had yet to rise.
Dark was the night,
But empty it was not.
The wailing sirens
Are now happily replaced
By screeching owls.
*The Exchange*
We are one,
Earth and Sky
With no beginning,
No end.
The hands we hold
Are made of water,
Visible in the rain,
Seen in a morning’s
Blue haze
As plant’s exhale.
Lovers.
We tumble between
Sky and Earth,
We are one.
*Again*
Slipping away
Are the daylight minutes.
Soon enough we’ll count the hours
That have gone by,
Over to the darker side.
It’s easier and easier
To contemplate
The year’s ending as it nears.
So many minutes, hours, and years
Have slipped away this same way.
Because we don’t live a ledger,
There’s no accounting
Of what we’ve done with time or life:
We just do,
And do, and do.
So, welcome the darkening,
The year’s cooling.
Welcome it with open arms
And a warming hearth,
And then start all over again.
*Autumn Coming*
I saw it coming
A week before it arrived.
There was a quiet presence about it:
Murderous crows called
From steps away
But sounded miles off,
Stars shone in darker skies,
The brown leaves of the corn
Hung silently like the arms
Of forlorn souls.
The calendar caught up
And Autumn arrived
Right on time.
Temperatures dropped,
Crickets chirred
From deep in the woods
And from the comfort of deep leafy duff.
In the morning’s light
The heavy dew looked like frost,
But, that will come on it’s own, and soon enough.
Orion is in the east
And I’m in heaven.
*Day by Day*
Midnight
A bit of comet’s tail came streaking to earth
As everything under these faraway suns turned cold.
It’s coldest just before dawn,
Everything is slower
When waiting for the sun
To wake and warm on these cold days.
But the morning glow can turn hearts and leaves afire.
As the sun warms the air,
Autumn aromas erupt from fallen leaves
And then clouds erupt to litter the sky,
But both leaves and clouds are gone by sunset,
Blown aside as the day returns to golden.
Night slips in and re-reveals a milky path
Across the sky and millions of stars aswirl
In their circles; silence settles.
In a few hours, we’ll see the comet’s tail again
As the showers begin.
A bit of comet’s tail came streaking to earth
As each of us held ourr breath and made our wish.
Midnight
*Hurricane*
There are storms
On the horizon,
Nearing by the hour:
Storms that will
Change forever
The shape of all.
In me
A storm turns
With the fire fueled
By the heart,
A heart seeking
Another shore.
There’s a storm
On the horizon
Heading your way.
And you are in the path
Of both the terrible
And the grand.
*Cold Cold Cold*
The dark sky is
Cold, cold, cold.
Points of light burn so far away;
And only cold separates them.
Yet, each point is a furnace,
Warming small stony spheres
That wander near.
The dark world can be
Cold, cold, cold.
Love can seem so far away,
Separation all too common.
Yet each heart holds a furnace
To warm the cold, the hungry,
Those near in need.
Turn away the
Cold, cold, cold,
Hold out your hand,
Open your heart,
Come into the warmth
Of my waiting arms.
Come home, come home to me.