I forget how old you are
and I remember digging
red clay hard from the summer
sun and heat

What a slender twig you were
accepting my  grip around your base
and the dirt around your roots

You grew mostly without my notice
leaping upward and outward
until all who passed admired
how sturdy your branches,
how rich your needles

Now you tower, shading hosta
and embracing the dogwood
beside you
even though it puts on airs

This season you spill
brown needles
like a dog shedding
its winter coat

I expect you will
linger long after
I perish

I had a dream of white pines
writing poems
I wonder if you noticed me
if you will long for me
not passing by, I wonder
do pines formulate poems
and will you ever
write one about me.

The moon makes you cold
but therein lies its remote wonder
You soon become a devotee
trapped in the grip of its allure
and wondering how it is
that this oft silvery orb
is at once so cold and yet so warm
it leaves many a lover
moonstruck and abstracted
On a leafy night like tonight,
with a tropical moon up on high
dancing phantoms peep through
the gaps in the palm fronds
and the moon woos them
with its promise of worlds unknown
She looks at me face up-tilted, and
eyes consumed with heart-fresh passion
I have a foreboding feeling,
and a fearful certainty of loss
for time the unyielding enigma
promises  you everything
but seldom delivers
what you ordered
in the heat of the moment
Tonight the shadows are dancing
the dance of silhouettes,
ethereal yet as real as the moon that shines
and the stars that beckon
I am a wandering disciple of life's mysteries
recruited on leafy nights such as this one is,
and I'm tied to you  by  an unebbing desire
to plant an idea on your tempting lips
and hear you dispense what my fate is
in this so changed world of our time

Like swimming in molasses
trying to ascend
hoping to begin
to get where I want to be

Swimming in molasses,
can’t get there from here
as a robot in first gear
trying to go with the flow

Swimming in molasses
waiting for the gooey
mass to warm
for me to find my way

Swimming in molasses,
Grandma’s Gold Standard all natural kind
dark, black-brown viscid glue
that holds and restricts

I’m swimming in molasses
deliberate, lethargic,
lagging, leaden, swirling toward
the promise that awaits me

A scent of lavender colors the room
as her metal clipped heels
announce her arrival
One thought rolls over and over
in his mind
like a bird pecking on suet
They had reached a tipping point
in their relationship
He knows how to spell commitment
and rejects the mere smell of it

Her arm curls out
reaches around him
as she presses her greeting against him
a greeting that carries
a pressure to decide

As she smiles her hello
her eyes search
every crease in his face
looking for a sign
that he wants them to be real
real enough to step
together on the same path

What she finds  
is a vagueness
pooling in his eyes
a resolute tightness
covering his jutting jaw
a signal that he is sliding
around and away
from a vow, a promise
of a future together

Have ever you heard
   The crows sing sweetly?
A singing bird,
   They sing discreetly.

They caw to scoff
   And to berate you,—
To **** you off
   And agitate you.

O.O

you don't understand how long some people have been here
you don't understand the changes we've seen
you don't understand how much we've longed for the people to
be who they be
you don't understand how it breaks our hearts
to see such infighting
bought to our world from other pages
used to back biting
you don't understand, for us
that have believed from the start
that Hello Poetry was once a place
where we always laid our heart
we gave over our life to this place
we endured every change
when you see something different here
know we have suffered more than this strange
once upon a time
in an awesome time and place
when people googled
Poetry
they found this space
they found inspiration
they found laughter that never ends
they found confidantes and a place
to plant
a never ending garden of friends
So if you're from another site
drawn here by the skin of tooth
sit a while in our midnight garden
and I'll speak to you a truth

Hello Poetry has been my best friend
for over 5 years, and all the friends
I've found on here, they've danced beneath my laugh, and held onto me so tight
that if I ever fall so wrong, they'll make
it all right

And that's the saddest thing
about Hello Poetry today...
is that most don't try
to make true friends
really real friends
or interact with them
in any meaningful way