I place the pacifier not -in- your hand
But near it.

You surely will find it there
Right there
In the dark
When you are searching for comfort.

I nudge it a little closer,
Thinking of little girls whose parents don’t protect them
And wishing I could climb over these rails
Into this little crib
And hold you hold you hold you.

I bid the pacifier take over,
Sleep tugging me away from you with its persistent hand.
A curse, really, to abandon my post.

How many hours do we lose to sleep?
I would give them all up
To stretch this time out and out and out.
You, dreaming your mysterious dreams
And me, right there when you awaken.

Multitude of symphonies
-songs of winds and rains and birds
Cut through the bitter serpents
-the wicked waggling tongues of Man.

A broken smile can linger for months
(coming from a heart waiting to die)
all things left unsaid, even, goodbye.

With goodbyes ringing in your ears
and the horizon coming closer with each step
it can seem a lonely road up to and until the end.

Thin layers peel back
the show and tell
once seen, never forgot.

REMMBRANCE

There are shapes remebrance takes,
sometimes starlit sharpness, each spark
a scattered bit of self, sometimes the muddy
ground of grief.Remembrance, an imaginary book,
words of a separate world.

Often, there is travel through dark matter
to reach a breeze of willow leaves on water.
Perhaps a day with its own pastel shade
or a gentle night of ringing quietness,
a dove nested in the eaves of wind.

In dark and brightness, both anonymous,
nothing is sure but the narrow path
leading to a new now, guided by
the unseen force of soon.