You had to
Shoot me down
As I was a bird
Flying to soar
And you did not want
Others learning how
To fly away anymore.
Just like the barn owl
Ever the ethereal nun
Kneeling in the branches
Closer to the warmth of the sun
Spreading butterflies
Far away from your aim
With heavy huntress chastise
Away from your cold plain.

An autumn day brings
The morning amber,
Noon's rays pouting haggard
Hit the fifth fair floral
The evening suite,
Nestling wild spaces
For our memories keep.

You planted the seeds
                                              Calling roots
To grow a garden
                                         To give life
Between
                                    Shadow to tree.
               Nothing grows
               Free without love
               For without love,
               Freedom is untrue
               Like love who lied
               Stole your freedom
               From you.

It is such a vivid mystery
a flowing constant change
It would be somewhat scary
but for your perceptive soul

Soured smooth vivid mystery
A flowing eternity
A stranger who is somewhat scary
Smooth-sailing journey.

Why is this dream still so vivid
And displaying in my night brain
Over and again over decades.
In a surreal setting that melds Times Square and The Grand Concourse.
With buildings mostly dark
Street lights reflecting off shiny pavement
and sidewalks
I walk in the empty streets
I'm alone on the night streets
'Glad of that, 'don't want a dangerous stranger lurking

My legs are strong yet tired, but I have plenty left
My legs are my greatest physical asset, for better or worse.
I don't know where I'm headed
But I want to be there, 'keep walking at a good pace.

Dusty aired steep shadow
Shoes heavy reigned
The empty place in
Time to search my night brain again
Ponder the walks behind my shoulder

Vivid with gushing candour.
I came home just when it started to pour
Timely shaken feet
Shifting close by the livid door.

Waking with the dream fresh and clear
As is the air, (it rained so hard last night)
Out with me goes my dog, to be
Among the clear crystal voiced Thrushes
In their Woods, which is theirs for this half of the year
I wonder what they say
I know they've never sung in Times Square
They're not singing of those smallest white violets
That grow in the wet
With their tiny purple lines on their bottom inner petals
Or about me
Or Sam
But probably about each other
About how lovely their songs are
How good they'd be together
Not about the crescent moon
Or about where I didn't know where I was going

I don't need to know their mystery
Or how the violets grow in the same place every Spring
After being under feet of snow and inches of ice
For the other half a year

Is this the other side of the dream?
The dream?
How do you know to say it differently?
Better? Vividly?

The fragrance of your skin
                              Thrives in
                                      rusting warmth
from wispy
petals of poppies,
                                     Fleeting
                    like my breathing;
                                           Windblown whispers,
of the same air
We give.