America the Beautiful is broken
into variations, reassembled
at fifteen, while your friends played ball, tumbled
after grounders.  Met her, vows were spoken,
children came, a job to feed and shelter.
Insurance, managed risk made up your days
while music filled your nights and underlaid
a counterpoint of art and home.  She felt your
dualistic muse; the age-old tale
of starving artist held no taste for you.
Forty years of working every breath
until the night your muse's heart would fail.
You lived for years with your worst fear come true,
for you had starved your artist to his death.

I cross my legs under the Bodhi tree, sitting
in the sanctity of my well afflicted fortune

I splice the moment’s intermittent air
to drink of the jeweled river cascades
electric plush ~ ripened
to taste like lemonade Nirvana,
puckered up with pleasant chills
flowing through crystalline lattice
works to cleanse my mental palette
with a hint of mint placed on an Other-side
be rest assured the crest rolls atop the tide.

A vacant awareness is aroused from within the
sanctity of my sweet surrender ~
My eyes flutter blissful blinks like flirting butterfly’s
flapping wings resounding good vibrations
across the globe where space rebounds with
positive affirmation of the little girl with wet eyes,
smiles wide, an outstretched palm placed firmly
in a mother’s hand, how safely she's returned,
perfectly as planned.

I celebrate this victorious vision inside my skull
with grunting cheer and a third eye sneeze ~
my air fills with a burst of vision mist coating
my recollections piece by piece holistically,
light as a photon beam phasing in for safe landing,
strapped back in my body for leave of meditation.

I rise out from under the Bodhi tree, in my sanctity
of well afflicted fortune and give a thankful bow
for the good outcomes of the day.

Our youth was seasoned
With greens and blues
When your skin scorched me.
Still burns.

Could we but flip
Pages like clock hands;
We need only agree,
And nocturnal waves
Would lap again,
And all the world
Would fall in time
Upon itself.

Elements, such as we,
Cannot.
Your present calendar
Has days X-ed off,
Days checked on.
Times have changed
Peoples and places.

I remain yours.

I used to gather
where the bridge crossed the bay
Pausing in the ebb of
the changing tide .
I tried to capture
the moment of the ebb's decay

She came to me
with soft words of call
Left messages saying
she's not sure about it at all

The sea follows the
ways we know not
our separation was complete
we left our ancient past behind
to tread upon this land
on our own two feet

Shake the dust from your call
dress the shadows
make the sun fall
words of deliverence
wet the tongue's
parchment and thirst

The tide remains constant
demanding , relevant
with unrelenting presence
It is married to the bay
In a never ending struggle
of give and take

I’ve torn myself to shreds
And there is nothing left under this skin
Worth loving
Anymore

I didn't know that I could feel this strongly about every breath another human being takes, or for that matter, who's lucky enough to breathe that same air.

Our bodies traveled slowly through the field that evening
Sun falling somewhere between rest and arrival
I bent down and picked up a dandelion
You told me that as a girl wishes came true
When you believed in something deep enough
That nature would blow the truth over our lives

Then we became adults

So I wandered through the same field years later
Finding a dandelion that without a doubt
Had your name inscribed in the stem
I looked closer and found the wishes
Engraved in each seed
Spring loaded for my breathe to take them away