Acres of Autumn

I am the thinly watered sunlight
Filtered through the scarlet leaves
Of this endless autumn day.

I am the musky thick
Smell of burning wood
Carried in the pliant arms
Of the young North Wind.

I am the glow of reflecte light
Through the top-heavy clouds
Dancing across the azure sky.

Oct. 27, 2009

This poem needs editing and a final verse (I think) to finish it off. Comments appreciated!

Unsung Hero

I'm singing your song
Because the world slept
When you moved mountains.
Because the world blinked
When you brought in the tide.

I'm singing your song
From mountaintops
I'm whispering your song
To waves you brought to shore.

I'm singing your song
To ears that are
Unattuned to the rhythms
Of seismic underactivity.

I'm singing your song
Because it's
Something to sing about.

April 8, 2009

Love Notes

I read your note yesterday.
My cheeks flamed
A smiled tiptoed across my face.

I read your note yesterday.
A thousand butterflies took the skies.
Orange against blue;
Joy against the canvas of me.

I read your note yesterday.
I saw it when you lifted your head,
As I ran to meet you.
I read the lines as your hand
Reached out to clasp mine.

I read your note yesterday.
Can I read your note tomorrow?

February 26, 2009

Dream Catcher

My dreams have taken flight and soared, become free-wheeling gulls hanging on the ever-changing wind currents. For moments at a time they dip, disappear behind some rocky outcroppings on the coast of this murky ocean that threatens to swallow me whole. And I run after them, hands outstretched, fingers grasping, just to catch a few feathers as my dreams fly away, just a few feathers to remind me what it was to hold a dream in the palm of my hand.

I run, stumbling, gasping for breath, the sharp remaining shells of seafish cutting into the soles of my feet. Cutting into my soles, cutting away from my soul.

The ocean on one side, offering oblivion of a dark sort, brooding, morose, but oblivion all the same. The dreams that fly, somersaulting in the air above me. And on the other side? Lies the unknown. So I run for the dreams, I must catch some feathers.

May 5, 2005

Protection

"Were you close?"
I hate the question.
What do you mean?
Implying that I mourn
For a man I never knew.
Yes, we were close -
You have no idea
The words, the love that
Hung in the air
Like many gossamer cobwebs
Unspoken, but reflecting
The sunlight.

"Life is precious"
Yeah, I figured that
Long before you were conscious
Long before you
Dared to think.
You, who did not care for it.
You, who wanted to throw it away.
Don't quote to me
Words that are too big
For your brain
Squeezing out sideways
Through the revolving door
Of your mouth.

Death?
What Death?
What do you mean,
He still stalks the world
Still takes the onesI love?
What right has He?
What right have I?
My love, I cry.
Let my love protect
You and I
From the stalkings
The ominous mutterings
As Death, hears the ticking clock
Of my precious
Closely held
Life.

April 22, 2008

Did you feel the world stop spinning?

I caught a moment today, when time stood still. An instant, when most of the world is asleep, hanging suspended reality, between dawn and moonset. Atlas shrugged and for a moment the world stopped spinning, hanging precariously in the balance between rising and falling. Two opposing lights, the cold distance of the moon and the warm embrace of the sun warred...and for a split moment, I caught it, I saw it...while the world still slept.

February 1, 2007

Sabrina

You don’t see her,

Standing there.

No, there –

See?

Under the lamplight

Bathed in that golden

“American moon.”

I tell you,

She’s there

You don’t see her

But I do.

No, I’m not crazy.

I tell you,

She’s right there.

Her long black hair

Curls so softly over her shoulders.

See? You can’t see her

Her long pink jacket

And her neatly manicured fingers.

Her soft, sad, smile,

Because she knows, you see,

That you don’t see.

For pity’s sake!

See her!

Look at her!

Or miss forever,

Her faint shadow

As she turns and walks

Away.

You didn’t see her.

I tell you, she was there.

What was she like, you ask?

She was the sand

In your hourglass

With all the captured potential

Of each grain.

She was the nestling robin

Shuddering before her first flight.

Crying as she stumbled over the brink

Only to discover the wind beneath her wings.

She was that shimmering

Rainbow.

Untouchable, even on film.

But perfect, evasive, beautiful.

She was all this

And you didn’t see her

Bathed in the light of

An American Moon.

And you will never know

What you missed.

January 19, 2007