Opened

I, who once opened my eyes,
Came to and rose again and sighed.
The trees were lifting leafless heads against the sky,
The crows and ravens let out not a cry.
Sweet memories should follow me,
As you should, by the bridal bree,
But we are not the same as once we were,
And time is not the essence nor desire's lure.
Still when I sleep I see your face
The eyes that met mine once, the trace
Of golden hair against your laughing mouth, your middling words
And somewhere in that past the cords
Of my own youth, a faded, denim, broken guise.

Dropping Light

When the darkness comes earlier and earlier,
And the light stretches like so many fingers in broken prisms across the ground,
There is a stillness in the heart for the upcoming winter,
And ebony wings fly against the emptiness and sudden loss of sound.
The leaves are like so many golden ghosts,
Edging themselves into the approaching night;
And the trees are fasting, thin skeletons in the gloam,
Cold spectral cuts against the dropping white.
The smells are brisk, a passing item in the wind,
And placid creatures dare not take a deeper breath;
But one of them is crying in the heavy blackness as it comes
A sad and dismal sound like a forgotten dirth.
"Tell, tell again", the seasons sing,
"Tell the lost, the long forgotten tales."
The sun sinks down and so the world
And sinks each deep and winding trail.

Bridges

Sometimes I wish I could stand at a windy bridge,
And let my hair loose,
And let the stars, like so many thousands of sentinals,
Tell me how to feel.
They would disrobe in the dark
Smile at me and say,
"Even your keel,
Take the road,
Leave your sorrows,
Drop your load."
Though, then, even then,
I may cry
That they know so much better than I.
How they are floating but well employed
And I am just a speck of dust
Standing on a bridge.

Leaf

The meadows are all barren,
The gate before them ice:
A blank reminder of the clouds
That bent the fields of rice;
The crows are calling sadly,
The deer have disappeared:
There's pieces of a frozen mouse
Which seems both sad and queer.
The sheds have doors that bang and beat,
Like drums in rushing winds;
There's but a single leaf alive
Which rests with corpsly friends.

When It Fades

Time is forgotten
Sands and crumbs we drop like pods of cotton,
Shadows that we never could remember,
Frosted panes and empty lanes in late December;
Spring came too soon: flowers bent without a hope of living,
Buds and bees and leaves their spirits giving,
Wishing they could sing another moment...
A moment...
A moment in time.

Your Brand

You weren't anonymous, this I know;

Not the breath of a wind, not a passing glow;

You were not just a footprint in the shimmering sands,

Nor a glint of gold in a distant land.

No, these things could be passed, and none would care,

A shell, a drop, a chip, a hair;

But you were more than empty hands,

And left me like a burning brand. 

Changing Wind

Catch the wind within a hand,
Never let it leave,
Like a thousand grains of sand
Unallowed to breathe;
Favors it will have to get,
Just to stay inside;
Start a trial, take a bet
How long it will abide.
Whisper in its flying ear,
"Hear the autumn come?"
Soon you'll have no loss to fear
Though its voice is dumb.
Catch it, make it stay for life
Feel it every day
It will be a kiss and knife
When the skies are gray.

From the Drought

I think if I should see the sea,
Then I should also see my soul;
An item both inane and wise,
An ornament both deep and dull.
The foaming breakers are my hopes,
At times they were so commonplace,
But now they draw themselves away
And disappear without a trace.
Should storms arrive, I will agree
That they reflect my downward thoughts;
But I should not be prone to change
The rains that keep me from the drought.

Better Things

Make room for little things,
The lovely things, the sweet good things,
The soft white rain in early dusk,
The butterfly in newborn spring.
Make room for little things,
Those things that soon will fade away;
The laughter that your child brings,
The baby cries that won't long stay.
Though the world is often bitter,
Sad with time and torn from peace;
Make room in your soul for better
Better things will never cease.

Footprints

Should I seek the rocky shore,
Torn with the skeletons of the sea,
Ravaged by waves from the ocean floor,
Flecked with the blood from a coral tree;
I should find my soul's dust there,
Thrumming and throbbing within the skies
Spread over captain's nests and men
Laboring hard under light and tide.
Creatures scuttle through damp black homes,
No one remembers their island place;
Such is my mind in the churning foam;
A footprint in sand that leaves no trace.

Rain Wolf

In a flash of light,
In a thunderous crash,
Alone,
Against the rain's sharp lash;
His teeth a gleaming white,
His fur
A shade like bark
With flecks of night.
A single drop of glittering blood
Upon his tongue,
And on his claws, the sliding mud
From valleys, thickened with the flood.
What cave he came from,
No bird knows,
What mountain, ringed with diamond snows,
What creek he quenched his endless thirst...
Are only known by the grounds he cursed.
Pinnacles crumble, boulders slide;
But his bold black heart may never die.

Dove

Like silks in the air,
Like pods on the breeze,
Our final words
No eye can see.
The things we said,
Or never did
Are but the sun
When day has fled.
The clouds are dead
The hours gone,
I listen for
The notes of dawn.
I miss your heart,
The heart I knew
The dove that took
Its life and flew.

Power of the Star

A beacon of light; it brings one home,
A song perhaps for only some:
The innocent, the sweet, the still;
The patient on the thorny hill.
Pure sun, I know thee from afar,
Thy shining hair, thy gleaming star...
And in thine glow I lie my head,
A flawless, ample, burning bed.

New Year

Within the dim confines of a lost tomorrow,
The heart finds a home to hide its sorrow,
In bright gold lanes traced warmly with light
In songs that still linger from birds in flight.
Footsteps make patterns in snow from the past,
Cold things, and dead things, and things that don't last;
People and places ringed harshly in rain
Dreams that the mind views with crippling disdain.
Present paths twist through the soul like a thread,
Unread, unspoken; by consciences spread,
Lips meant for moving, smiles and frowns,
Rivelets or rivers, mountains or mounds.

Brother

The lights from the plains fade in and out,
They scurry through weeds dancing beams in the sun,
They seem to belay every memory and dream,
Every countless bright space, every stone mute and dumb.
The linnet is singing high up in the tree,
The bending white willow on banks thin with foam,
The meadows around her are shaken with white;
Red poppies are scattered in threads from the loam.
A violet is dead on the ripest of graves,
The lyrics of breezes blow steady and slow;
The darkness is coming, the last shadows running:
The final sounds drowned in the brook's tepid flow.

White Wings Silhouette

Oh, hope, white-winged, clear-eyed,
Burning with a dream that never dies,
Fresh-faced, pure with unnamed bliss;
Against the rocks your clarified dyes
Threw themselves, bloodied with full regard
Of what the world had lost.
From scorching eyes you let loose torrid streams,
The heat of such were blacked with hellish cost;
The ground seemed sighing with a sweet relief
When you had gone to change your bed.
Still---even now----the wind is warm;
Oh fading hope, so newly born, so newly dead.

Railroad in the Rain

The world is full of thick curtains of rain
Windows soaked and drooping,
Curtains sagged and bowing.
In the yard, a solitary train
Has stopped upon its tracks
Waiting for lightning to distance itself;
And the conductor breathes a thin breath
Into the moist air
One breath less
Then the soggy gray bird perched near.
Mud boots, cold shoes, thin pants, dim thoughts
Sitting in one car there
Waiting for the rain to end,
Looking out past track and bend.

Star

In the thin air, the darkness surrounds
Thick, encompassing, endless,
Save a single star of hope in the earth's revolving rounds,
An entity entirely friendless.
It is the brightest in a sea of velvet black,
It is the sharpest glitter in the deep,
It follows every shadowed crack,
A dream within the reaches of one's sleep.

Rainbow Wood

Over the branches of a fluttering forest,
When winter has bowed her head for good,
A dun meadow is beginning its firsts of blossoms:
Painting the air like a rainbow wood.
Swallows, and robins, and larks go winging,
Bright, happy dots in a fresh sea of green,
Crickets, and and small silent spiders go creeping
Newly emerged to impress on the scene.
Thick, heady scents loaded thickly with pollen;
Deep, languid winds that flow heaving with breath;
A single foam brooklet that jumps through the thicket
And wakens with song all the cubs from their rest.
The dawn is still breaking, the spring still unveiling,
The does still have yet to bring fawns to the world,
But in the soft throes of the shadows and sunlight
The wild, flush roses grow sweet and unfurled.

First Lights

Dim lights in the morning,
Filtered in grass,
Gray shadows of trees,
Roads covered in brass;
Thin lines from the rooftops
Peaked doorways of gold;
Mushrooms with patterns
Scattered over their mold.
A train blowing lyrics,
Another goodnight
Before the sun's rising
Before the first light.