i do not fear this death;
i have died once before,
when the knife blade struck
rudely - scoring four stitches
across the sweet scent
of my newborn head -
and split wide the walls
of my womblike cloister,
spilling every drop
of the only world i'd known;
when the masked stranger
grasped me by one leg,
severed my lifeline,
and cast me out
into the cold, harsh
glare of unfamiliar;
i would not have gone freely;
i would have clawed and begged
and never believed
the tall tales
of 'undiscovered countries'
'from whose born
no traveler returns;'
such feats of faith
have always been
just out of reach
of tiny hands;
i would not have left
home and hearth
and poor possessions
or mother's love behind,
surely to die...
and yet, here am i,
by this sudden death
of involuntary birth;
and born hence again,
by similar means,
i will one day
leave this earth.

The Yeah-buts, I-Know-buts, the Can’ts and the Couldn’ts
Are not quite the same as the Oughtn’ts or Shouldn’ts
They lead to I-Didn’t, but could’ve and should’ve
If only the Yeah-buts had let me, I would’ve

will you hold my hand,
through the slow,
beleagured boredom of mundane?
through the brief,
brilliant bursts
of extraordinary?
beyond the flowerbox
of birth, as far afield
as dim, delirious death?
will you hold my hand,
even as it grows stiff
with cold, will you grasp
life's meaning
(full palm and fingerful)
in the waning warmth
of late autumn?
when the leaves of memory
drift (silent & unseen)
into the soiled hands
of the greedy ground,
will you love me then,
as you love me now?

rain licks the windowpane,
slavering springtime
in broad strokes
of moonless opal;
this winter appears
all but over(cast
in puddles beneath the feet
of grissled snowstacks);
each raindrop reflects
the nightsky - cleft
by the concave inversion
of green, amber, red -
chasing (one by each)
in slow succession;
awaiting some unseen signal
from a winsome sky,
when (off!) they go,
bounding headlong
into plummeting paths
to the sea; each one
bumps its great guttural
girth into another, until
there is but one sheet
of torrential nightshade
to stain, opaque,
this windowpane.

Someone lived in an everywhere way;
as more he went, the less he stayed;
and little by little, by much, by small,
Someone began to go nowhere at all.

Somehow, somewhere, he’d misplaced his why;
as Who and When went where-ing by;
and wonder by ponder, at last, by how,
Someone decided to stop off at now.

He let go of then, he took hold of yet,
tried to recall, never forget;
he opened to maybe, to might, to true;
as olding became renewing his youth.

Now Someone lives in a Where-He-Is way,
as more he discovers, the more he stays;
by loving, and giving, in all, to try,
Someone has (grateful) discovered his Why.

we are the…

luckiest little dandelions
in all the meadow wide;

with ticklish, tiny tootsies
bare, we tiptoe, dreamy-eyed;

in cool, green grassy,
sunshine-sassy
flower beds, we hide;

the luckiest little dandelions
when we love side-by-side.

green gloss of wax unfolds
from (clenched) within fur-capped
mollusks; the sunlight touches all
things - like a child in a candy shop -
raining wrappers of consumed
and discarded through a pale,
powdery sky; how bashful beauty
is, when coaxed from safe haven;
how searing the light of exposed;

fists relent, letting fall
the grains of hopeful harvest;
enraptured servants ferry far
to find a mate for every bloom;
(but do they travel half as far
as i for love of you?)
these blossoms brook
not an early spring;
for feeble are the shoots
of seeds too hastily sewn;

listening, i hear the trees
lengthening, toes to twigs,
and trunk to tawny limbs;
they stretch the timbers
of their winter stiffness,
feel sap run thick as glue
within paper veins; their trembling
fingertips tickle tiny wings at work
sanding the corners of the wind;

i train my lens upon a blade;
a solitary sentry stands,
rash as a straight razor
in a nursery of innocence;
upon its point, a crimson bead,
a pinprick of speckled black
and bloodied, a prehistoric
pygmy poses for the shutter’s eye;
i hold my breath to steady my hand,
and draw my focus on his wing;
while, in the trees, a single leaf
unfurls the flag of spring.

infinite in reach, beyond knowing
and lifespan; a subtle avalanche
of one sees rounded peaks level
to valleys wide; momentum
makes waves in their wake;

nearer than conscience, they began;
pebbles dropped through glassy skin
disturb the status quo, unseat
the stale stagnant; still waters
breed only decay;

what multiplies quite so much,
so many, so magnificent a factor
as virtue? what multiplier, but love,
could hope to yield
such products as these?

where obstacles arise, they part,
then passing, reengage, unmoved;
not even the encircling shore
can long withstand its rhythmic surge;
but, ceding something of itself,
returns all waves from whence they came;

and, what of the pebble?
and, what of the hand?
content, they sink into slow
obscurity; buried beneath the crushing
weight of ages; time presses onward,
downward, and in on all things,
forming diamonds from common
and memories from men -
from whose small stones of kindness
eternal ripples begin.

the nighttime stains my bare feet
red with smudged iniquities;
the best of me lingers still
among the brutal daylight;
a tardy reminder of
a month of mondays
spent naming raindrops —
once plumes of evanescence —
as they razed their liquid souls
against a skin of moon and skylight;

(warm your feet against me, love,
what good is this fire, if not
to fashion your sanguine smile?)

watch as the day turns,
discreet as a maiden’s sigh;
how shrewdly tomorrow comes,
collecting payment
on a lifetime deferred;
only such would presume
to place a price on ruin;
only such as these would
make it their delight;
i cannot; i lack the heart;
i lost it, once, among the trees;

(do you recall
when first i fell?
so lost in love of
your shadow’s
footprints
in the snow?

you didn’t know;
how could you,
though?
i ever feared,
too much,
to show).

under the cover of darkness,
the storm arrived in the night,
held cruelly by the frozen claws
of lifeless and gripping,
dull-eyed, aching winds;

over and around, above,
and below, whipping through
the wires, hung taut and bouncing,
as they spanned the naked, vulnerable field,
the fiendish wind danced like a troupe
of lost souls, howling, as they streaked
through an eternity of grim despair;

an unending screech of tires
on wet asphalt, a tooth dragged
over the slow, grooved skin of a record,
the wind was wild with wanton hatred;

a demoniac possessed of self-injurious
pleasure; a wart-nosed, wailing hag
being pulled into saltwater taffy, uttering
incantations in the godforsaken void
between despair and springtime;

each feathery snowflake drawn
across the blue, braided strands
as a rosined bow simpers along
the sinews of a violin string; i awoke;

half-asleep and muttering; cursing
the careless discourtesy of (my God,
is that the wind?!)

i trained my ear in the morning’s
most fruitless hours; listening, thrilling;
alive with the passions of living!

greedily coveting each fear;
each annoyance; each stifled breath
of wonder caught captive, and rattling
loose in the cavern of my chest;

i awoke;
let me never
fall asleep again.

Now let me pause and set aside the evening
drawing a breath to blow the clouds away,
the moon away,
the stars, the earth and the sky away,
‘til all that remains are the trees and the wind

- and your eyes, my love, and mine

With no rain to stain your cheeks
and no moon to clothe your silhouette
only the trees
(to lend their leaves)

and the wind
(to play its song)

- and your eyes, my love, and mine

I love the whats and hows of you,
the wheres that you once knew;
and as I learn the many whys,
I love your reasons, too.

i’ve grown old;
as old as
all others my age;
though younger, still,
than those
who came before;
there is thin comfort in youth,
thinner than the waist,
but, less so, the hair;
for, all is relative;
and even they
have grown old,
too.