Watching the budding vine of petals unfurl
all through winter I am looking for spring
the daffodil yellow greens, the lilac blossoming
of tiny star flower florets, sweet the songbird chorus
moss softly sunning, the trickle of forest creeks running
the remembrance and fragrance, the pungent warmth of rain
drops, wet and round, bounced from trees, upon my face falling down
cool splash, the startling of my eyelash
wet washing and alive, the resurrection, the cycle
of all things again reborn.

For you the woods, the moon
night paths, I breathe the air attuned
treading starlit, I sleep and dream
ever closer my love to you
bright from the sky like stars
ever into your arms I fall
and fall.

In spring, green along the river
amid ancestral foothills, we walk deer trails
wild in the woods of scented pine
of silver sycamores, silken barked
stark, they pale against bluest skies
their new leaves green and glistening
we are listening for songbirds, for a language without words
transfixed, through this portal, reborn in this world
warm winds speak sweet and susurrus of spring
melodious they sing, leaving far behind
the cold, the dead of winter.

I am a borrower
collecting things that shine
all stashed in cracks and hidey-holes
where the rafters meet the roof
in the basement floorboards
lift one and you'll see
the treasures I've collected
two gorgeous glassy eyes
seven gilded antique buttons
a bouquet of sweetly fragrant lilies
a gleaming jar of pixie dust
three noble barristers
an Irishman netting butterfly dreams
a sorceress of the endless prairie
windmills like soldiers all in a line
the saddest porcelain doll
a small brown bear
trains screaming by on underground rails
a sprinkling of desert blooms
six jack-in-the-boxes so I'm always surprised
the hairless stuffed dog that bit me as a child
a Rickenbacker bass softly riffing the blues
a farmer's Ovation to accompany my woes
seashells that sing the ocean breeze
a merman from the Northern seas
tucked away in every space
packed within each sweet hollow
these simple pleasures I have borrowed

The chimp and the monkey
Were fighting rather funky
About who was the greater ape.
Along came a killer
A monstrous gorilla
And left both their mouths agape.

Then a talented gibbon
Wearing a blue ribbon
Played a fine hurdy-gurdy.
A local photographer
Insisted he recorded her
When he said “Watch the birdie!”

Monkey see, monkey do
Is a childish kind of game;
Like one-upsmanship and chicken
And going to prison,
It often turns out the same.
Hello, wake up and smell the smoke
You’re burning down your future.
Your school-ground behavior
Has gone rancid in flavor;
You boys need to pull yourselves together.

In their pugilistic oblivion
The warring simians
Might have fought until perdition.
Had not their mates protested
Their battle got arrested
Due to their marital conditions.

You see, even dumb creatures
Understand the features
And benefits of a nice residence.
What a sad kind of animal
Makes his home life pitiful
By setting a warlike precedence?

Monkey see, monkey do
Is a childish kind of game;
Like one-upsmanship and chicken
And going to prison,
It often turns out the same.
Hello, wake up and smell the smoke
You’re burning down your future.
Your school-ground behavior
Has gone rancid in flavor;
You boys need to pull yourselves together.

Though you are deep into
Your night and the Fade is closing
In,
And the walls seem to collapse
The air around you,

The dawn will come:

Birth of light
Antidote to the dark,
Burst into depressions
That softly take me away.
Hope is tomorrow,
A light of the moment,
The sun can rise on you now,

The dawn will come.

Throughout the soul
Petrified on a slab,
Awakening on the promise
Of phosphorus morning.

In the immortal moment,
Know of the dawn,
From Heaven even
Angels fall.