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.

Song

The summer sun flew by me,
I knew not where it went,
Only the snow now hounds me
The bane December sent.
I used to dream in summer,
I held him, side by side,
The August moon before me
A still unmarried bride.
The breeze came by me softly,
The petals of the rose
They brushed my spirit gently
As grasses brushed my toes.
There was a wind of silence,
There was a hope of sky,
The light was not behind me,
But triumphed, wide and high.
Within this lovely novel
I scarcely could contain
A feeling of belonging
That now seems but a shame.
Return to me, dear summer,
Come wandering from the spring
Leave icicles behind you
Let loose, give voice, and sing.

Confusion of Dreams

I broke through the earth,
I knew not where,
Save that I felt the splitting air
Turn inside my spinning heart
Like a piece of modern art.
When I awoke, I felt the sun
The clear blue sky,
The earth of dun;
But I have found confusion lies
There, in silence, within my mind.

Bell of Harvest Time

A precious sound fell through the air.
Even the ravens knew not from where.
A peal of thunder, or of light
The storms of autumn, and of night.
It seemed to shimmer in the clouds,
Down pathless places in the woods;
The peal went curling through the cool
A meadow fire's only fuel.
It was the bell of harvest time
That rang through orchards ripe with wine
That sent the children running home
Before the falling stars of glome.
In the rain of windy dark,
When owls cry and foxes bark,
The clanging notes can still be heard:
The song of some strange brass-bound bird.

Quickly

Far away, in an empty meadow
A doe stands, her back bathed in shadow,
Her head held high in a ray of sun.
Warm, dusky breaths leave her diluted nostrils,
The weeds flick against her legs
Hooves of raw brass and hide made of dun.
The pines alone behold her start
Out from the sheaves to a separate place
Leaving only a print in the falling dust
And a shivering stalk of Queen Anne's lace.

Pale

An island sat sleeping in the sun,
Its beaches white as palest dun,
Its emerald trees swept up by moss,
And perched in by an albatross.
The waves rushed on into the sea,
As if they touched eternity;
A beam of sunlight hit the sands
Their grains untouched by beast or man.
No ships appeared against its coast,
No sound except the dying notes
Of whales which swam within its bays
And hid by underwater caves.
The sky was clear, unaltered blue:
Against its chest, a parrot flew
And flashed its wing against the sun
Above the sands of palest dun.

Wind Daughter

I wandered through the world---
How empty it seemed.
The breeze was blowing coldly against a silent willow tree.
A bluebird tilted his sky-bright throat,
Singing sweet things the cherubim wrote.
I wanted to be emptied into the shifting waters,
Flow on to the ocean, become the wave's daughter;
There was a longing within my heart,
That could never be touched or blown apart.