When the winds die down
and the light through the trees
throws ghosts against the walls
of your empty, empty room,
remember, please, a smiling me.

My burnished white teeth
and cherried gums from chewing
salted taffies and sugary sweets
will unceasingly scuttle back
beneath your bed sheets
to nibble at your coming.

And the bees will persist
in burrowing their hives
in the depths of my flower box
until late, late fall
because they can't let go.

My eyes probe the mist where it clings to to mountains.
The mountains who stand tall and strong
                                      Who grow darker as they rise Shadows.
They're pitted against the sharp vibrant sky
                                                    That surrounds them, vast, blue, mysterious.
I linger over the glassy river surface  
That reflects the cotton clouds
             And the dark, haunting mountains
             And their huge blue groundskeeper
The river winds and winds,
                            A great thriving knot,
                                                          Untanglable.
That sinks and weaves
And swims
Level with the earth
Equal in grandness
                                                         Acts as home to all
                              All who breath air
All who drink and sleep.
Those who gaze up at towers of green
When the sun is high and summer abroad
They chatter and gather and hunt
They roll in beds of fuzzy moss
                      Growing, growing,
To give life to others
To leave when it's time
                                                        I reach, I stretch
                         My fingers strain
To go there
To escape
So close, so close

                       My hands hit the glass.
The jerk jumps the frame.

the earth is awakening
in warm quiet winds
as the sky welcomes soft rains
giving life to hibernating foliage

the earth is blossoming
in leaves in flowers in birdsong
swaying opening soaring
reaching towards the infant sun

the earth is laughing
in greens in yellows in pinks
in rainbows after rain
in wet pavement beneath dancing feet

the earth is dancing
in the swaying of branches
and children on swings
perfectly content that it is spring

I wanted to lay for awhile
in the incomprehensible darkness,
eyes needling all the things
which they could not see.

I'd imagine I was on Mercury,
where the hot, hot sun turned the ore
to slag rivers which carved up the surface
now the miasma of heat roams
the barren hilltops and plains
starving
for there is nothing left to consume.

Or Venus,
breathing poison,
weighted down and cooking me,
hotter even than Mercury,
where I'd watch the lightening play
across the saffron sky,
from the calderas of spent volcanos.

Or Earth,
where I lay awake in the night,
dreaming.

On Mars,
digging up fossils,
prowling riverbeds,
searching for memories in the broken rock
and bloody soil
Olympus looming in the distance.

Jupiter,
where my heart would break,
amid all the thunder
shouting itself against the gales
There is Ganymede,
silent above the endless storm

Or Saturn,
floating in the shadow
of those celestial rings
where Titan guards over them
ready for thieves in the darkness

Uranus,
where there are oceans of liquid diamond
glittering endlessly
through the alternating
decades long days and nights.

On Neptune,
beneath the sky so blue
and torn apart by the winds
nearing supersonic
over the burning ice.

Or lonely Pluto,
where I'd forget myself,
there in the dark.