Will you make love to me in sunlight
and in the rain?   Will you sing to me
when the hours go by? I will be in
your voice calling.  

Will you make love to me in winter
when the pale day is soft
snow against the windows?  Will
your warm breath leave patterns
on my skin?

I will be your landscape.  My love
is an echo.  You will hear me
for years.  My soul is the perfect
moment melded with your kiss.

I want you to run with me toward
the early spring of our youth. To
remember beneath the kiss lies
love unparalled in literature.

No, not Tristan and Isolde, but
the coupled clutch itself opened.
Where they were unrequited we will
soar over wars and peace.

Will you love me tomorrow when
I am rubbed with age?  I will
be the first one to go to the
stars.  I will be brave today and
you can take my soul to Heaven.  
Will you still love me tomorrow?

I will love you after you are gone.
The tears of my memory will
outlast ever your casual goodbye.

Caroline Shank

My Forsythia has one lone yellow
flower.  A sapling.  The petals hover
close to the ground as if afraid of the
sunlight that shines a neon sign.
Maybe Spring is coming to this
chilly Wisconsin May?

The temperature dropped 10 points
just now.
There is snow on my mind.  After
all one yellow flower does not mean
others will follow.

I will take a look at it and see if I can
go on.  I too am lonely in my singular
stem of hope.  Summer will follow
at a distance.  Autumn will come
tromping behind the scenes of
sunlight on my garden.

Lord, what are gardens for?


Caroline Shank

Is there shelter from this storm?
The neurons rage at the
light that seeps through the
cracks, waiting for the prayer
to form from forgotten words.

The days are short, no more
gaps form between the two
waves of memory.  Gone
on some mornings is the
memory of the time before
the syllables of experience
faded into time.

There are many ways to make
a life over when the buoys
and markers are lost.

I will find you inside
your days and I will hone
your experience into
days you will not miss
and I will cry alone.

Caroline Shank

I'm looking for my husband.  He has
disappeared into some place inside
his mind, like a sea creature slides
into a coral bed.

Quick now, here he is for a moment
or an hour.  Like a Robin bobs in
the yard, he is beautiful in his song
before he vanishes into the sky,
flying above or around me.

Are his pieces forever gone? Will
I find a kiss behind my chair meant
for me alone? Will my sorrow erase
the years of love?

I will be brave today.  Tomorrow
I will be the coral he needs. A small
animal in a very large and
strange ocean. .

Caroline Shank

Finding Beauty


in brokenness is a
fine how do you do Ma

You broke me in slivery
pieces when I was a little
girl. I am crackled like
the century in which we
were born.

You died with the tainted
Soil still on your hands.
I outlived the strangled
ivey you plaited me with.

My mends are obvious.
Gold veined patches
wind through my skin.
I am not an art form.

I am good wood burned
dark for your satisfaction.
I peel off the bark.

I found not beauty, but
redemption in the years
beyond your death.  I am
unbounded and only
slightly born.  

Life is an adventure but
to you it was a safari.
Your family was your
prey but it's ok

I have found beauty in
my life anyway.  You almost
killed me.

But...

"That Which Does Not
**** Me Makes Me
Stronger"


Caroline Shank

I hope to see you soon,
in the morning with
rumpled hair and boxer
shorts.

I hope to see you soon,
when the Spring sun
is high and the blue of
your eyes wash the
shadows of separation
away.  

I hope to see you soon,
when stars crinkle the
daylight and the songs
of the night cricket
compline.

Will we walk the
lined path along the
beach of memory?

If there is nothing left
after the lighthouse has
gone dim and illness
separates us forever

know that I will be
there in the interstices
of our heart's last
singing.


Caroline Shank