In the fragile hands of my little girl
who knows not the agony of my years
nor realizes the joy she provides
the balance her innocence brings
she holds a picture
framed in red oak
figures in black and white
posing beneath a gray tree
which no longer provides shade
on a hill no longer there
she talks to them in almost silent whispers
those who were gone before knowing her first breath
those I miss so desperately
she sets the picture back in it's place
and for a moment looks achingly sad
'tell me about them Daddy'
she says

It's costing me all I got to give
Just to dig myself out of this hole
I can't figure out why I was meant to live
Or how I can make myself feel whole

I can't afford to deal with this pain
That's been going on for so long
Even sheltered from the rain
I find a way to do something wrong

It's a struggle just to get out of bed
And go on living a life so empty
I can't erase these thoughts from my head
You can't understand what they do to me

She weeps not for the shore
As distance creates a shadow
She embraces the current
Becoming the wave
And gently pushes her sea home

She chases not the sun
As the day is put to rest
She is the moonlight
That cradles the stars
Tightly to her *******

She yearns not
Her pain-streaked tears
That fall below her feet
She is the soil beneath her toes
Her pain now colors the tree

She worries not
The flowers' bloom
Or the leaves that fall like rain
She is the wind
That will kiss the ground
And sweep it all away

Unburdens the dusky river

dreams of flow dead in the bog of hyacinth
harvest burnt in the scorch of aridity
ripples robbed by the silt of dogma
sunbeam denied by the **** of creed

I was meant to reach the sea,
now I would never make it.

I pick the river's shattered pieces
with my own from the wintry dusk.