River rock, smooth and cool
Glistening in the midday sun
A testament to time and strength
Beneath the rushing waters run

Carved by centuries of flow
Each curve and groove tells a story
Of the world's relentless dance
Of nature's boundless glory

I pause to touch your ancient surface
Feel the weight of your solid form
And marvel at your steadfastness
Amidst the chaos of the storm

River rock, you stand unmoving
A symbol of resilience and grace
A reminder of the beauty
That lies within this wild place

When you were gone
we planted a young tree
in memory
and twenty years later
from that day
I wonder
how you have grown
Are you a gentle birch
sighing in the breeze
or an apple bearing maiden
or a larch with golden leaves
Maybe you are a willow
with trailing veils and skirts
a fragrant pine
or a somber elm or an ash
with spinning keys
I will return
I’ll come alone
and sit within your shade
A tree it is eternal
A poem
not a grave

Like a drop of milk
on a black cats whisker
the moon is lost
in the endless night
She follows paths
invisible
and longs to
see the light
But the moon is a lady
whose destiny is dark
She’ll never see the sunlight
or hear the merry lark
Sometime she is silver
Sometimes she is gold
She is a jewel invisible
above the lonely world

I am the wind
The merest breath
on the baby’s cheek
as she sleeps
her evening sleep

I am
the bracing wind
that reddens cheeks
and teases skittish cats

I am the gust
that startles birds
to quarrel
in their trees

I am the gale
that wrecks the ship
The hurricane that
shatters worlds

because the stream cuts me into paths every morning:
makes me shallow and deep, soft, jagged and drifting
and we all greet the crayfish in miller’s creek eventually:
become ships in the komorebi
become chips off of secret rock below the rusty pylon
on a hilltop, invisible, quietly
pinging signals to the strangers nextdoor from a raspberry bush

because we all become scarecrows, lost
in tomato vine towns
and red maple roots and branches
scared to disturb the dirt or the clouds

because sometimes the bats come out at dusk
to enrapture small ghosts that hang on wilted branches in the woods
climbing toward where the sun used to be

and i join them when that little river runs deep enough

Each
Day
I
Pray
To slay
My depression.
Never been a quitter,
But I’d like to quit this obsession.
This obsession with my sadness.
And with my social status.
It’s like I fetishize the madness
Endlessly raging
Inside of my soul.
And I swear I don’t have
A place to just go
And lay low
For a while.

A place where I don’t
Have
To
Fake
A
Smile.