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80 · Dec 2024
Shines and Sparkles
“It's me that shines and sparkles
when others strike you down.
It's me that rises firmly,
well-planted on the ground.”

They send you to the gallows
with unrelenting doubt
and perch me like a songbird
upon a stem, devout.

And preach to you but one psalm
"you will not sing again,"
be still, that cry inside you
shall wake me in the end.

Oh, life may cut your feathers
and cage me deep inside,
begrudge, that I may offer
your will, your soul, your pride.

But know I yearn to fly high,
soar free and reach for stars.
It's me that shines and sparkles
the dimmest from afar.

Still some will prune your flower,
dead head me 'til I dry,
reseed me in a garden
with never-ending lie.

Despair may even charm you,
bereave me on a bed
and cover me with worry;
of glimmer not a shred.

A rose that will not wither-
the one inside of you.
A bird that never quivers
when but the sky is blue.

I am the tender branches,
me, I'm the humming bird;
the only psalm that lingers
when all of them are heard.

It's me that shines and sparkles
when others strike you down.
It's Hope that rises firmly,
well-planted on the ground.
Dedicated to my son Gabriel, who is my star and guiding light. May you shine bright always.
No longer young.
No longer fair.
The fields are worn,
the cottage bare,
where flurries bloom a winter dye
and blind the windows of my eyes.

Come, wave on wave,
come, north by south
to stalk the margins of this house
and urge the breeze to lay them near,
the copper eaves to find them tears.
Asking tin to hold and hold,
birches bent, to fold and fold,
but scatter you like leaves of Fall.
Asking me?
Nothing at all.

The window stalls another storm.
The bed recalls a hearth once warm,
yet neither know beyond the white
my perfect memories, tonight.
Within a flake of fragile love,
everything’s bright,
everything’s free;
even the bars inside of me.

Oh! What for you a winter gray
would break into a summer day.
Oh! What for clattering of chimes
a man could dream of better times:
A Spring more leaning close to you;
the kind of love I never knew...

The kind of love I never knew.
30 · Dec 2024
They Don’t Know You
Some see a bloom
under emerald crowns,
in shaded gloom.

I see You.

The Maples, five daint petals
warding their siblings
and birds perching broad shoulders,
some soft thing.

They don't know...

Thorns rest on your resolve,
a wrinkled body moss keeps
where the snow and fast rain
and the sun-ray sleeps.

They don't know...

You are pedestal,
grounded,
among dogwood and thistle,
a gem:
not simply one of them.

Men, past loves in passing,
and a white corsage to pin.
They rest themselves on you.
What a sin.

They don't know...

What takes no eye to know:
you're sky for the Night Star,
your bark is beautiful.

No! They don't know...

It’s moot.
Some see soft shoots.
Some,
cut flowers for roots.

But I see bark-
the beautiful dark.

I see You.

— The End —