In Florida
the beach cut in half
cool sun baked cake, one side blue
the other side white in swirling sands
and after the waves of tide left
birds stamped footprints, webbed and wet
disappearing in the afternoon sun
sand art lost and windswept.

This cemetery of broken stones, the gray hanging trees
of moss draping down to the crab grass and leafy lawns.
This silent field of sticks and bones, of breath long gone
tiny grave of an infant child one day old.
Behind this black rusty fence, wrought iron and bent
circling round the dead, a strange cage we'd like to escape
forgetting our fate, we smile and pretend.

Black, hollow world of sky - starless
alone in this darkened room
dreaming of the star showers that fell
last night from your lips
quivering.

These winter trees
cold and shouldering winds
their bending branches unhinge
falling limbs crash and break the snow
further still a secret world of mud and bulbs
that in the spring blooms of tulips and violet mossy lawns
and too, the sun that comes to warm and fills with green the tree arms
this wooded home that breathes with sheltering birdsong.

Outside my door a cawing crow
of blackened wings and indigo
delivered by night's shivering storm.
The wind and winter's howling call,
scattered nests and down the feather falls.
Crack of limbs, cold and bare branched
mesquite leaves and needles spiral to the ground.
In a swooping field he flies into the tallest pines
deep and slow, the trees creak
wild in cello tones.

The afternoon sky with its wine dark clouds
red blushed and blue, moments before the rain drenching greys
the scurrilous skies, the black winged silhouettes that fly
amid the cactus trees, thick with chaparral
a total reconstruction of sunny soft memories
this cold tumbling storm that moves overhead
to form, this desert raining lake.

i.

impressionist,
where the grey
clouds and the blue
ice of winter
gather their ghosts,

winter, too cold,
too white, the
woodland hollows
dent,
summer love

discarded in
the frost,

the sky oaken,
the moon’s forget-me-knots
silvery dream.

ii.

clouds like wintery steel,
sunken, in a night pool,
the golds of my heart,

the lodestar gathers
moss and rook,
glimmers in a sky
of woven cloth,
her leaves, the trees
of winter,
her leaves, the dark
breath of the storm.


iii.

winter and quiet stars
brooding emperor
sleeping in the twilight
hour,
winter dreams of
strange ice caverns
where ice ghosts
dance with twisting
hair.

iv.

pond of ice,
snow bear,
snow dream,

sleep unwraps

wide avenues of
trees,

sleep, the dark girl,
the falling tide.

v.

twig breaks under foot,
earth’s thrones
settle in the lizardy light

the moon rises in the sky,
soft centuries of sky.