A Question of Numbers

In one year we travel four billion miles around the Sun
Without even stirring a limb.
We dream fifteen thousand dreams,
Remembering almost none,
How significant those that we do.

In a lifetime we may see nine hundred New Moons
Twenty-five thousand Sunsets,
Twenty-five thousand Dawns.
How many do we really see?
How significant those that we do.

How many times might my love smile at me?
How many times will we kiss?
How many dreams can we make come true
Before time flees and is gone?
How significant those that we do.

If I thought I'd be gone tomorrow
What would I say and do?
Nothing significant.

The light comes and goes across the earth;
A clock hand that sweeps us away.

Butterflies, unaware

See Me

there’s always the sad fiction of not wanting
whatever it is one needs, but let’s just say
we miss our opportunities for lack of bravery
fearing rejections, we turn our faces away

misinterpreted words and glances
cast shadows over the day
when wishful love draws forth a sigh
boredom is all you hear

the moment passes us by
words spoken with an open heart
are only heard as a trap
hopes and dreams fall apart

this is my want, my need
my wish, my desire, my dream
look into my eyes, see me clearly
see what I am, not what I seem

At least three times a week
Thumps, bangs, a loud crash,
Doors slamming, metallic echoes,
Bumps, thuds, sharp edges, smash
I hear shouting, muffled, no words,
His voice booms and beats against the walls.

Hushed stillness after, as i wait to hear him slam out
Clattering feet on the stair to the street
Airless, exhausted relief as they fade.
Everything echoes in empty impersonal corridors
Magnolia walls, polished floors, plain blank doors.
The room behind one containing locked fear and silence.

I sense it there
Hear it breath through the walls
It enters my room, far more than the noise
A pounding, held in fear
So loud that it keeps me awake
As I listen, long after.

Next morning, so aware of silence,
When I hear a sound near my door
I jump, as alert as a hunted animal.
I hear her heart clench
So linked to this stranger by sounds
Though I have never imagined her face