i do not know you,
but in a fleeting glimpse
i caught your secret smile,
the one you might save for a lover,
to share over the top of a cup of coffee
in the after-glow of your coupling.

in that quiet moment,
your eyes sparkled,
and all around you faded,
the colors of the world outshone by that glow,
whose secret lies behind the half-smile.

"Mona Lisa, men have named you" comes to mind,
for your secret and hers are intertwined in the mystery of a moment,
a  glimpse,
a rare peek into your heart.

i am unfinished,
unpolished marble,
my surface raw and marked by tools,
but i am strong,
standing tall,
unashamed of what i am,
of what i am becoming,
growing each day in ways i could never before see,
a new part of me coming alive,
until i am ready to leap from the block itself,
to walk where i will,
a breathing monument to the spirit of art,
confident and strong,
kind and gentle, too -
the expression of humanity in all its forms.
i may be unfinished and unpolished,
but i am still a work of art.

chipping away at the block,
every ounce reveals something new,
like a strip-tease that moves slowly,
removing one layer after another in the most intimate of ways,
revealing the beautiful form underneath the layers.
show a little, hide a little -
some skin here and there,
deftly revealed,
slowly, over time.
every breath, every drop of sweat ,
shed by the artist in concentration,
the heavy chisels razor-sharp,
movements precise,
revealing the form at long last,
a perfection of the body,
art and life together.

there, in that moment of bliss,
i could live a thousand lifetimes,
and never grow tired of it,
that sweet, beautiful moment
when everything was just as it should be
and no one could keep it away, even us.

but life isn't one moment,
and as they fade one into the next,
we see not the moment,
but the mosaic,
many little moments falling into a bigger picture,
the events that make up the past
forging the path for the future.

the moments are fleeting,
and yet,
i long for just the one,
that perfect moment,
caught in a snapshot,
frozen forever in memory only,
framed on the wall.

i will never know your name,
or your face,
or the loved ones you left behind,
or the people you helped -
and saved.
i will never know what it was like,
running into that place,
unsure if you would be coming out.
i will never know the torture of those last moments,
when you finally knew that you'd be coming home sooner than planned,
only to be buried in the ground.
i will never fully understand your sacrifice,
but i hope that you know just how grateful i am.
Thank You.

you can fill it with thoughts of another,
or perhaps love,
or any little thing you can imagine -
but when that little tiny place -
the one you go to when you're hurt
where no one can reach you until and unless you let them -
when that place is empty,
and the emptiness is so vast the little place expands
until you believe it will take over you completely
and all you'll be is an empty shell, going through the motions,
that is when you must realize the emptiness isn't really there -
it's filled with fear and doubt, jealousy and resentment.
that's why it feels so empty -
there's nothing good there.

it is a whisper on the wind,
the mournful expression of loss,
the way the earth cares for each of her children,
as they lay dying in the trenches dug deep into her soil.
she screams out in the only way she knows how,
a hurricane, a flood, an avalanche,
an earthquake, a plague, a famine -
we call her weapons tragedies, because of the loss of so many people,
it is her way to try and restore the balance,
keep what is left of her for the rest of us to live.
If only we could hear her cries
the ones she whispers on the wind,
rustling the leaves of trees
and rolling over the blades of grass.
When her breath brings the scent of smog and industry
instead of the scent of flowers.
We are too busy to hear the earth,
and we are surprised when she finally shouts at us.