It was me, not you.
It wasn't the right time.
I was still getting over my last poem.

We can still be friends,
but when I say friends,
know what I mean is friendly.
Know that I won't save your seat at my table.
They are all taken by my books
my clothes
my love for another.

But when I say friends,
also know that, years later,
when the pain that first brought you to me
is as distant and hazy
as the smoke from my first bridge burned,
I'll smile when I see you;
Note how the core of you is unchanged.
Even with your new look,
your melody rings the same.

Where did he go, the wily one
who swings from branch-to-branch?
The one with the toes like curly thorns
and spider claws for hands?

How did he whisk you off, away
so far from home and land?
I wish I had heard what you tried to say
as he dragged you along on the sand.

Cry, love, please cry
in a voice I can hear
and I will come near--I will come near.

When did you start to change your mind
about our young family fair?
When did you start to look behind
and step through the weeds and the tares?

What did he whisper when the wood
enclosed around your steps?
What made you ready to answer back
and tilt your heavy head?

Call, love, please call
with your voice aloud
and you will be found--you will be found.

Cry, love, please cry
in a voice I can hear
and I will draw near--I will draw near.

A shiny stone washed up onto a beach
So easy to discover and enjoy.
A crystal hewn from deepest mine
So valuable but hard to win.
I think I’ll choose the sea-washed stone
And leave the digging to the miners.
                ljm

Coming home is seldom as-the-crow-flies;
It's not a beeline, darling, it's a dance.

I thought the trail was over
just beyond the yellow gate.
But no.
The daisies drew me in and I soon found
that with a little ducking
and bending around,
I could continue on.

I thought I'd turn around for sure
in that first clearing at the top of the hill--
It seemed like such
a perfect stopping point--
so high!
but something in me still was hungry,
so I crossed the grass and found
a path that led me deeper in.

The conifer-lined walking trail
bade me sigh with aches and joys,
rewarding me
with simple pleasures, now and then--
a bunch of purple flowers
or a little pool of polliwogs.
It's rolling ridges continued on, the end always hidden behind
one more turn.

The forest, very kind to me,
has never truly let me see
anything to satisfy without a whispered mystery.
A promise, or a hope, at least,
a path so many wonders deep
coaxes, smiles, unfolds to me
and keeps me coming ever back.

Someday, when I'm transformed
I'll know
it's twists and turns are infinite
and wonders over and below I haven't half considered yet.
But now, where all seems closing in, I'll ever be surprised
each time it isn't over yet--each time I learn to rise.

"N
     o;"

she said, slowly,
the word dropping from her lips like the gentle uncorking
of a stopped-up bottle.

"No,
Maybe I won't do a great job.

I’ll do a
FINE job,
a
GOOD job,
a
~decent~ job,
an O-KAY JOB, an
ac
cep
table/ job.”

(First, she enunciated. Then, she spat.)

"Maybe--"
--she paused, for breath or consideration
as an overdue gleam
found it's way into her countenance--

"Maybe I'll do a MEDIOCRE
job. An AVERAGE job.
A /much-to-be-desired/ job.
Perhaps
I'll
do
a
SAD job, a SLOW job, a HACKNEYED job, a ~pathetic~ job!

MAYBE..."

...here, she paused again, as one should always do when giving a proclamation...

"...I'll do a BAD job.

And THAT'S O KAY."



Speech complete,
she sat--heaving--with her knees pulled into her chest.
After a good while
and a few kicked clumpfuls of grass,
she rose
and returned to her life,
doing just about as well
what she had done
before.