staring out the window,
I remember you as you were

a bird always in flight

a fist full of tomorrows
held in the palm of your hand

staring out the window at the pouring rain
the warmth of your hand
pinions of a dove's wing
your hand in mine

I will not see the shadow
under your smile


gathering all the light in the room
like a flower in the sun

I remember you as you were

When the day was dying
I was back to the market.

The last time I was there
haggled with her over the price.

She wanted to sell high
I wanted to buy low.

You win she said at last
I bought high
but have to sell low.

I knew she was lying.

This time she wasn't there.

Someone said
her man had left for another woman
and she hadn't since been seen.

The deepening evening hung like a dagger of pain.

She was never good at bargain.

.
I’m just a lonely traveler
   on this earth
Sometimes it feels as if I'm
waiting for the sky to fall
with each passing breathe
       of wind

   Standing alone,
   a windswept tree
   leans downwind;
conspicuously wrought,
   naked and bowed
   by the grinding
      silent forces
  at nature's whim

Rootless tumbleweeds
roll by randomly:
    broken off,
spinning clockwise,
never looking back,
timeworn and tired
of resisting the prevailing
    high desert wind
and its unheld temper

Rattling the tinder
   dry sagebrush
like songless wind-chimes;
    voiceless fugitives
wreathing a bellowing silence


    Jesse Stillwater