Oh, the horror.
When the teardrops falling
On your shirt
Stain you the color of dying roses
And the pale eyelids
Flutter suddenly shut,
The cheek in your chest and
Weak arms
Begging impossible safety
From your helpless hands.

And the scream ripping out of you
Is as warm
And as hollow
As the body
Resting quiet and heavy
In your shaking arms.

Take a sip, my dear, this tonic brings
about a deeper sleep and brighter dreams,
  and in the morning light when you awake
      life's song shall sing anew,
      and dawn will bring to you
  a freedom from your fright, from your mistake,
and yes, the ache that tears from you your soul
shall drift away, and almost leave you whole.

She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog! Good dog!"

We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.

Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest's bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried

To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.

Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhoea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there.  Good dog.

"We hardly speak any more."
I know it's true,
I hardly speak at all.

We used to often talk,
staying up late, letting
our words play their games.

She asked if I'd rather
live alone on an island --
in complete solitude --
or be trapped in an apartment,
only able to watch people walk by.

I said I'd rather watch the people walk by;
at least then  I could pretend that happy
people still existed.

Today it feels like I'm in that apartment,
watching people walk around me.
They don't seem happy.

I smile at them;
they never smile back.
I wonder if something's wrong with me.

I stopped talking when I started writing.
I already spelled everything out on paper,
and the words never crawl back into my mind.
If those words ever get back home,
I'll tell 'em all how I feel:

One:

You can't help anyone with words,
who needs something done.
A sentence about your love
means nothing when you're
twenty-seven hundred miles away.

Two:

Strangers are more alluring than
people you know closely;
that, my dear, is why I'm terrified
of getting any closer to you.
From a distance, you're so beautiful.

Three:

Sure, we spent a few weeks cuddled up
in your room; but your lifestyle is the reason
that I fled from Southern California.
I don't want things.

Four:

He's just going to end up killing you.
One instance of abuse should be enough
to send you packing. You crawled back for more.
I understand -- too well -- the lies that get you trapped.
I keep waiting for that phone call.

Five:

A woman should never be a reason
to abandon your old family;
although I see how her children
are your chance for redemption.

Six:

I wish we talked more often;
more than once every few months.
You're intelligent and articulate,
and the hour or two we spend
(not often enough)
fills me with hope for the world.

When was the last time I came here?
I can't remember the last time I needed this place.
And then all these images, memories, flooded through me.
I remembered everything that had happened in my past
that might have changed who I became.
Every sad, cynical moment,
whether it be a tragedy on TV
or a revelation from my own experience.
And all the incredible beauty I had seen in my short life.
Every time I'd come here last,
I'd come with a sad and lonely, afraid and anxious, numb and brooding mind.

Here I was in the woods, the way they had been for so long,
once-delicate leaves compacted into gray, crunching masses
on the trodden dirt
and rusted, crumpled cans
marking the slow death of the place I'd always treasured.
I sat down hard, saturating my worn black jeans
with the tired old mud of this sad place,
and sifted through the dead leaves
for some of that beauty that was my faintest memory.
There was none.
It was almost as if my mind had created that memory on its own...
And of course that's what had happened.
I'd always been good at imagining and wishing.
How sad to think that now imagining is all I'll be able to do.

You're not your body.
You're not your mind.
You're not your own,
and you are not mine

I'm not my heart,
my fleeting mirth,
my hidden tears,
my death, my birth.

We're not the world's
and it's not ours.
We can not own
the earth and flowers.
We can't sell the groves of trees,
we can't buy the land and seas.

Yet our hands build cities,
and our hands spill blood.
Our greed yields envy
while our hearts seek love.

Let us hope
that someday, we
can let it go
and simply be.

First she is Spring,
Leaping forth with life,
Giggling, stumbling, smiling,
She beams with promise,
Shows an innocent beauty.

Next, she is Summer,
Warm with adolescence,
Bright with new knowledge,
She displays an allure and a willingness for love,
The kind that are almost singular to youth.

Then she is Autumn,
She has found the love she searched for all Summer long,
Her skies begin to gray, and memories of Spring fade,
The lines on her face stretch forth like so many bare branches,
The warmth and elegance from her youth still plain on her face.

Finally, she is Winter,
White and grey, shadows of Spring, Summer, and Fall shine behind fading eyes,
Her hands shake from the cold, and her steps are no longer so sure,
When she rests, she remembers a lifetime of triumphs; not one of mistakes,
And still, she beams as brightly as that little girl in Spring, as Winter slowly carries her away.

And I have loved her all year long.