I saw you in the Alhambra.  I signaled 

And you gathered the purple from

Night, flew with me to the

ring of clouds and married me. 


The sky sang, the birds as big as 

mountains were our witness. 


You sang a song like Thunder. 

We rolled our love

across the sky. 


We will live a thousand 

times Longerthanforever.



Caroline Shank

We walk a little in joy

Then we fall to the grass.

You touch me and I reach


for the stars. You whisper

and I feel your breath

In my sighs.


Don't be afraid, but be

careful of the lights

that cover the evanescent

moon.  


We are beautiful in the night.

And when we wake our tryst

will end.  I fade always

in the sun.


Caroline Shank

Can I ride on the
colors of your conversation
to the door of tomorrow?

Can I glide slowly away
from the syllables of your
wisdom and philosophy?

Can I go now? leaving you
my soul on your plate?

Caroline Shank

Caught between spaces, faces

fraught with beginnings and end-

ings look backward, look forward.

At our age we spin.  The dance

of light is uncertain.  There

are shadows.  Perspective lies

just this side of the line

between the still world and

the moving.  We approach 

possibilities with prismatic

elegance.


More certainly we move across

the floor, scatter and are caught

up in the skirts of mornings,

afternoons, evenings.  Free for

the first time we shed our skin

in anticipation.  Old age is

a filled stream.


The echoes of childhood, the rasp

of youth are replaced by a certain

smoothness.  We go forward because

some thing turns us like a level

in space, always that way.  We go into

our children’s maturity, wrestle with

the presumptions of our age, and slide

like something iced into

something waiting.

I saw Sammy one

warm Spring day basking in the

sunshine of my life.


Plop, he jumped as I

sat watching him swim toward

me.  I was hooked.


Spring is a water.

lily shading a guppy.

I felt the shimmer


engulf me that day.

Love was floating by as

I waited for it.



Caroline Shank

It's snowing in flat fat globs.  

The wet from which it is born 

laughs at me.  It knows I

feel alone in my misery of 

winter. 


The cold turns my fingertips

as white as ice.  I must have

injured them sometime.

I stay in the house mostly


and I dream of big spots of 

sun like Florida summers

en *****.


I wait for Wisconsin

to spill it's tulips and

poppies.  I breathe slowly

the gray days of January.


I sit cross-legged alone 

in the icy winter, wake

when warm air permits. 



Caroline Shank

You are very likely watching

football and I don't mean to

interrupt.  I am thinking of you

and wondering how you are?

I know great and terrible things

are occurring in your world.


My world is failing by chips and

blisters.  It's third down for us.

Tomorrow will exist as it always

does.  


But I will be glad to have some

time alone.  To feel you

not always coming in my

door.  To sit and think about

how much I want a cigarette,

a glass of Sherry.


You may not walk in 

and that matters.  It really does,

but not as much as yesterday.


Play your silent games.  

I reclaim my life. 

You don't have to look so

puzzled.  

We were not so very much,

after all. 



Caroline Shank