it left one night
when the wind was unusually heavy
and the air was biting cold
it is brutal this high
in late December

I felt it go
making it's way down the hall
and lingering at the door
for an unusually long period of time
I cared not that the snow was deep
and the wood was thick
the whispers of your fleeing love
could not be heard above the deafening roar
of Winter in these mountains
I stopped to listen or to see something,
anything between the gusts and the landing flakes

I had been gone an unusually long time
as you watched from the bedroom window
by the time you made the call
after finishing your coffee
the tears had long since frozen to my skin
and my pleas had long since echoed down the valley

the old truck
I'm guessing from the 60's
now being devoured by trees
at the edge of this farm
melting into the hundreds of acres
a remnant
I took the back roads this time
on my latest sanity saving trip
to the Outer Banks
Where I'll pick through the
fragmented shells
looking for the few that made
the journey in one piece
like the scavenged souls we meet
I took some pictures where the
lighthouse peeks over the dunes
and spotted something in photo
after photo
an orb appears in each
and changes position with
every click of the camera
perhaps a soul
victim of a ship gone down
from one century or another
stepped out from his grave
the Atlantic
to enjoy a stroll along the beach

I returned from my second trip to Point Pleasant
much like the first
carrying back with me a feeling that I'd left somewhere I belonged
somewhere I had been before
not just once...but many times
perhaps I lived there
100...maybe 500 years earlier
things happen when I return home
the normal oddities that I experience
come rapidly and with more intensity
coincidences are rampant
and the spirit that makes itself known once in a while
becomes very active
a few mornings after my recent return
a glass light cover on the kitchen ceiling
managed to unscrew itself and crash to the floor at 5:00am
a few days later a 1990 ticket stub from a Paul McCartney concert
squirmed from the corner of a framed portrait of The Beatles
that I had hung on my dining room wall next to the table
it somehow bypassed the 6 inches of space between the edge of the table
and the wall...so it didn't merely fall...it leaped
and the numbers...yea, the numbers...111 and 1111
all the time...everywhere
I was watching a video on youtube about the JFK assassination
It was very well done and I was curious to see if it was receiving
a high number of views...when I checked...
his total views at that moment were
111,111

if you visit Point pleasant
stay at the Lowe Hotel
stop at the Mothman Museum
walk alongside the Ohio River and allow yourself to absorb the energy
that is Point Pleasant
and finally...say a prayer for the 46 souls that lost their lives when the Silver Bridge
collapsed in 1967

the days come and go
like mile markers on a highway
miles turn into weeks
the years are brief stops
to take a look back at what I'm leaving
this time
the valleys between the mountains
the beaches along the coastline
the storms between the Sun and stars
all add color and begin to define the canvas

the journey nears it's end
a destination never planned
if only we could turn  
follow the road back to it's beginning
...and start again

In the shallows of time
I call to thee
When the weight of this burden I carry
Brings me ever closer to the edge
I seek darkness while the Sun serves
only to more clearly expose
my longing for solace
I know not how to reach you
But I sense you with every breath
Perhaps the next life will be ours
Speak to me once more while I slumber
That my heart may be renewed
That my longing be not in vain

I have an angel
the little girl said
in a voice that quietly screamed
her loneliness
I could not respond then
because I did not hear
then
and continued walking
past her
in the dark hour I listened to all those voices
I could not hear
then
some ominous, some disjointed
and some just
sad
I have an angel

I have gone back to look for her
look for some sign as to where she rest
in this graveyard of lonely souls

my heart so dark as to shadow thee
I seeketh shade from the opaque
rest thy soul neath a linden tree
smell the life in Grasmere lake

in thy rest a lass wanders by
she chats me up a bit
I see her face as clear as sky
yet something does not fit

she whispers me a lovely rhyme
then turns and bids farewell
'I've loved you since the dawn of time
through heaven and through hell'

she disappears like foggy mist
in the wake of a rising Sun
our hearts were merged in that first kiss
for eternity we've run

night colors drip
from the hand not raised
from the smile unfazed
by the empty space
that lay beside me

nightmares slip
into my soul resigned
into my world designed
to hold in dreams
the love denied me

waking to the burning light
her voice now fades from blue to white
her smile a thought so quickly gone
a memory lost
again
to dawn

a quiet man he was
the smiles were rare
signs of affection
non-existent
yet his soul came through
his goodness
his quality
his concealed intelligence
I can see him in his sleeveless tee-shirt
cigarette in right hand
a pen in his left
doing the New York Times crossword puzzle
at the dining room table
he would watch Jeopardy
and reel off the answers
one after another
under his breath
he'd survived 3 heart attacks
diabetes and emphysema
years of working 2 jobs to support 8 children
but the alzheimers was unforgiving
and eventually wore him down
my Father
like his son
had buried a facet of his early years
his gift for verse
which I discovered unbeknownst to him
before his passing
in the early hours of one recent Winter's morning
I heard him call my name from the foot of the bed
I take it as a sign that one day
we will share our love of poetry

if given the chance to relive my days  
would I sacrifice to choose that which I left sighing in the Sun
I do not truly know if the love I chose to abandon
would have survived the years
would have burned through the days of darkness
our mornings wrapped in warmth
I shall never know
and I shall never see again
the vision of you etching your soul
on canvas
silently opening your heart to me
a moment in time beneath the Sun

blue is the color that I choose
when I choose to sing the blues
in blue bow tie and navy shoes
royal, sapphire, midnight, who's

24 shades will I unveil
aqua, turquoise, powder, pale
Ocean blue escorts winter's hail
Carolina skies, electric eyes
of baby blue

fifty years have come and gone
since that fateful November day
when men of greed and fear of peace
took the chance away

removed all hope of paradise
a world serene and free of hate
divided not by war, but sea
where love directs our fate

we run and hide from truth we fear
denial is the easier pill
we laugh at those who held the truth
whose innocent blood did spill

should the Sun soon set
on our Camelot lost
when evil conquers good
they will find no mention in our history books
of the ****** in the wood