Fields of white crosses
to mark out the losses
of harvested poppies

TORTURED SUNLIGHT

Only remembering things that have not yet happened

I nail the dream of you
to the back of my mind

until the memory of you
bleeds & bleeds &

pleads with me
to un-dream you.

Your kiss is a shadow
tortured with sunlight.

Your touch is a page torn out & thrown away.

Your absence is a hate
I create & re-create

to torment a mind

that only remembers things that can never happen.

TIME(AS THEY SAY)PASSES

The world is busy
becoming

the 17th Century.

Time holds its breath.
Mountains gaze into the distance.

It is snowing
in China.

Ricci's European maps
delight the Chinese scholar

who notes" ...you don't
have to leave your house

...yet you can have complete
knowledge of the world."

Here and now the world
shrinks to an Internet click.

A palace built
of memory.

I yawn and fall
asleep in the 20th Century

...waking up in
the 21st.

~
Learning to patch. Learning to mend.
Learning to venture. Learning to comprehend.
Learning to capture and befriend.

Inventing the berry. Inventing the cream.
Inventing sweet slices before bedtime
and the Fragaria colored dream.

Loving new life. Loving each child.
Securing the stem and raising the vine
by loving the wife.
~

MUMONKAN(GATELESS PASS)
( for Junie )

Here, now
sister mine

lost
in time

dead to this world

I offer you

my eyes
my ears

so that you can see...can hear
without fear of Death

always interrupting you.

Take this breath & live again.
I can see enough for two.

*

MYOJU(THE END OF LIFE)

After the bus crash her soul walked home
limping awkwardly now

leaving a trail of footprints
leaking time like blood.

*

KAEI(THE SHADOWS OF FLOWERS)

Often, I visit this moment
long gone

(that has never ceased to exist) .

I go to find my sister
calling her name

lost as she is in the middle
of this vast field

her blue dress a flower

at the very center of it.

Here, Death
does not know her

name
only I call her.

She carries me home
in a piggyback.

I fascinated with the freckle
under the shadow of a curl

where shoulder
meets neck.

I lost in her laughter.

Both of us escaping
Her Death.

*

AME NO UTA(SONGS OF RAIN)

Here, Death
itemises her.

The bruised breast.
The torn spleen.
The broken ribs.
The hemorrhaging.

Death, leaving
his mark

on this
human being.

Familiar with her.
Owning her.

Memory tiptoes
into Death's great palace

& steals back
a freckle

lost behind
a curl

between
shoulder
& neck.

Death
has no need

for it.

When you smile
You smile from within
That’s a gesture to someone
Hey, I see you,
hey, I welcome you.
Smile and the world smiles back.

Quote 156🌷

A smile,
Can be a ray of sunlight on someone’s rainy day.
Be that sunbeam.


Shell ✨🐚