watching, witnessing
life is full of simple truths
that fill me with awe

when you are alive
it seems like forever
but when you are dead
it's like no time at all

deep in the blackwood
beside yellow skunk cabbage
a jagged spectre
stands astrde a tiny stream
twixt ferns and huckleberries
its twisted thorn covered limbs
looking cruel and alien
they gesture menacingly
and they win the argument
so i make a wide detour
and think how appropriate
that this bizarre armored plant
be called devil's club

a worm on a hook
or a fish in the barrel
there is no escape
and that is when I realized
that the only way forward
was to throw open our hearts
and surrender completely
making love not war

pretty little bird
flitting around the garden
please don't fly away
there is no other sunshine
on this grey and lonely day
your swiftness and bright colours
they light up my broken heart
that's all that i really need
please stay a little longer
so i can watch, smile and
begin to forget

within and among
the dark deep velvet heavens
in dream and without
floating drifting through the vast
all sewn with stars like raisins
part cloak and part crown of thorns
i spin there quite untethered
wending the giant smallness
of my bare humanity
a partial somnambulist
peering from one squinting eye
at realities cold light
afraid of mortal blindness
and trying to dream

cedar wood and fire
sweat and aromatic heat
ladles spilled on rocks
heated through unto the core
then getting up and leaving
and rolling naked in the snow
with a painful ecstasy
followed by relaxation
a deep sense of well being
and very pink skin