*Old Long Ago*

Sixty years
separate two lives
that went along
different paths.

Childhood bonds were broken,
dreams became real,
as one went to the city,
the other to the sea.

As we sang of the “auld lang syne”
in the midnight sadness at the last of the year,
we were shown another chance
to look back and another to start again,

So that two,
(one who dreamed bigger,
one who dreamed smaller)
might return home, together.

 

*Omens*

It was a month ago
that the first “vee” of geese
passed overhead flying South:
Winter.

Oak leaves, long since brown
hang on trees, well after
maples have lost theirs:
Winter.

Orion sweeps across night skies,
the sun sweeps low across days’,
pancake ice weaves across ponds:
Winter.

Inside, fires burn bright,
memories glow warm,
there are Winters past
to remember
and Winter now
as a promise.

*Hunger Moon*

It’s called the Snow Moon,
Wolf Moon
and Hunger Moon, the moon
of February
that foretells a time of cold
trouble.

It’s the cold trouble of
Midwinter
when hungers grow and
satisfactions
ebb to the desperation of
death.

It’s the desperation bred in
the empty stomach,
the empty eyes,
that ends in
the curled up sleep
of a thousand years.

The Hunger Moon,
on it’s rising, heralds
both beginning and
end
of other times:
harshest, truest
of all the Moons.

 

*Captured*

Right when I was thinking
that I was doing well
with my Springtime chores
(the first garden tilling,
next-year’s-firewood),
plans went up the chimney
along with the smoke of fires
all-of-a-suddenly needed with
temperatures and snow falling.

It was so easy to shed those
on-the-schedule jobs
(and take on snow shoveling
and wood stove stoking).
Now it seems that my only
necessaries are to feed this stove
and to sit by this fire,
quietly captured not by laziness,
but by this cat on my lap.

*Geese Flying*

From thousands of feet above me
I heard the faint gossipy chatter
from hundreds
of night-flying geese.

In an hour the nearly full moon
will silver streams and rivers,
bays and ocean
revealing their night-map.

Fly by night,
eat and sleep by day,
in an error-less journey
predestined by generations past.

It’s an endless journey, too,
like a beating heart,
in it’s insistence on
generations to come.

 

*Night Terror*

Just above morning light’s sharp edge
hung a straight-razor-cut “snik”
of the old moon, only a day away
from gone.

Stars scratched open the night
as they were dragged
along their dimming journey
to the brightening day.

In the distance,
with it’s slash-throated song,
a screech owl told the harsh news
of the death of the moon.

*It Is Spring*

It is the explosion
that no one ever hears,
the concussion
that rattles the foundation
of anyone strong enough to
survive it.

It is the bursting of maple flowers,
the reddening of gray skeletons,
it is the eruption of footfall flowers
from the cold, dark earth,
it is the mayhem of flight,
of birds, of insects, of swirling seeds,

It is Spring.

 

*In the Spring*

Thirsty
for the Spring sip
of nearly forgotten perfumes,
barely remembered colors.

Hungry
after Winter’s dry grip
on the nose and eye,
gray just isn’t enough.

Satisfied
by the flood of everything
that this season supplies:
rebirth.

*Our Seasons*

Unimaginable, for me:
a year without the harsh changes
of seasons, the cold, the heat,
the brown the green,
a time to sow,
a time to reap.

Unimaginable, too:
a year-long season with the glossy
leaves, the on-fire blossoms;
Allamanda, Santan, Caryota,
Balete,
Lantana.

I know six months of life then death,
You know life forever.

 

*The River We Are*

High above in a darkened glen,
tips of ferns, tips of  mosses
comb moisture from the air
and point it toward the earth,
the welcoming, ever-thirsty earth.

The earth swallows every drop
greedily,
gulp after gulp, until
trickle becomes roar,
roar, river.

River enough it is
to cut it’s way through hills
and fields, the weight of
energy pulling water to water,
river to sea.

Air to earth,
earth to river,
river to sea,
yes, then sea to air,
it’ll always be me to you.

*Sizzle*

You might never forget
the night you drove back to your
childhood home:
In the hurry, in the worry and with the
sizzle of the early-winter sleet
on the windshield.

Then there was the time
I was seen
standing, smiling, in the city,
listening to the summer sizzle
of tires unzipping shallow
puddles.

The sss-sizzle that is,
is nothing to that of what was.
“Is”, is a rarity,
“was” will be forever
or at least as long as there
will be a future for remembering.

 

*On Vacation*

With a need for change
I took a vacation from words,
From metaphor, from simile
From alliteration,
From all the tools that callous the feelings
Like a hammer does the hand.

Sometimes you get weary of
Smithing the ideas,
Of forging the feelings
From raw ore
To hardened steel.
Do callouses ever soften?

Thank goodness
Vacations don’t last forever;
Sometimes even the harness
Wears well enough,
Wears more like the glove.

*Messages in the Making*

Like messages
through pneumatic tubes of old
our stories sometimes
move through space
in little aluminum tubes.

Here today,
there tomorrow,
gone, gone, gone is the goal,
to be gone from where we are
to where we want to be.

Soon enough
we will be gone, gone, gone:
no longer there,
no longer here,
just gone, quickly sent.

*Message*

Ninety-two today,
(would have been, anyway)
and still part of my life.

That’s odd to say,
“part of my life”,
he having given exactly that,
life, to me.

I still see him
in so many things:
In memories of what he touched
and in my smile, his touch there, too.

Today, when the beachball-from-nowhere
washed to my feet,
I could hear him say
“It’s my birthday, here, go have a ball!”

I’ve said it before:
remember those you have loved
and they will never die.

*Three Haiku – Fog and Veil*

Snow-like drift of fog
edges toward me, veiling all,
covering my path.

With finest lace veil,
Fog caresses the Moon’s face;
tulle-like loving touch.

Golden morning-light:
it warms the earth, lifts the veil.
Fog soon disappears.

 

*Crickets in Love*

The birds have gone,
their warm love songs to the Sun
taken over by the crickets
and their morning, one-note ballads.

Their songs call
to a God flattered but unmoved
toward any great embrace.
The crickets sing of love
but the cold Moon slips away.

*Souls Rising*

This time of year,
spirits linger,
waiting their turn
to pass through the gates.

The moist, evening air
is full of their presence
(strange, the keys
that unlock the memory).

The scent of departing souls
fills the heart with the past:
of harvest time: tobacco and corn
of autumn: fallen leaves, gathered grass.

 

*Gardening*

You scratch the earth and plant the seed.
Then, you
wait and watch,
pray,
curse,
and maybe, maybe harvest.

When it’s near time to scratch the earth for me,
you too will have to
wait and watch as I linger,
maybe to pray for me, maybe for you,
to curse (I hope) my leaving you behind.

But don’t worry about the harvest,
I’ll be here until you forget me,
be here, back, whenever you need me:
a perennial.

*Migrations*

Some signs of the changing seasons
are easily recognized:
leaves covering the ground,
geese on the journey south…
and cats?
The cats will move toward sunny spots,
toward glowing wood stoves
and toward vacant laps.
They’ll dream of falling leaves,
flying geese and surrounding warmth.

*Falling Leaves*

It’s over, yet another growing season.
Leaves spiral to the earth,
on the only migration they will ever make.

One pass through, is all anything gets, really.
I hope that all spirals will be slow,
We’ll spend enough time on the ground.

*Plant the Seeds*

Plow into my chest
and plant the seeds
that next year will feed
all who would eat.

Till this ground,
open my heart
to the sunshine
of every possibility.

 

*Yule Log*

Traditions;
smoke swirls from sparking embers,
the wood almost memories, now.

But, how lively the flames danced
when the fire started,
how bright the memories burned.
He had to take a step back,
some memories too bright, too warm.

It’s almost over:
sparks,
just sparks of
two lifetimes of memories
in a tangle at his feet.