Dry worn out earth
Brown like the mud
The path is layered with you
Paved by the thousands of nature seekers hoping to find some sort of peace.
The scents of pine, spruce, aspen, dirt and mold cling to my skin and hair.
You’ll linger long after I’ve left this place.
Following me to my car, my home, and eventually my bed.
At some point, I will shower
And there we will part.
You’ll detach yourself from my skin and hair
And travel into a dark, wet world
Snaking beneath my feet.
I will emerge, as I did a newborn,
Wet and naked
But I won’t forget you
And will soon return to where we met.
And once more I will tread on top of the dry worn out earth
Brown like the mud.

Hollow out my mind like soft earth
after a season of rain,
and bring forward the dancing moon in reticence.

And let the steps beneath charred forest left behind,
bring fortitude in thought.
To help love what is and release what is not.

I saw you in all things soft and beautiful,
For your eyes were my eyes,
And my hands, yours.

Blurred images on the surface of a stream,
Laughing children, flapping sails,
hillsides of moss and vines and huts of stone.

Drifting hopes became my castle,
Kept warm by my sanguine queen.

In a different life,
the cold, coarse granite that separates us
Is nothing but atoms,

There, things are different.
The blade is used only in the kitchen,
And our hearts remain intact.

There, we are brave,
Our greatest fears tested and overcome long ago.
There as it always was, your smile is my smile, and my strength is yours.

Goodnight sweet juniper,
Let the moon kiss you slowly across the sky.
Return to your dreams and find my soul from lifetimes long past.

You can find me standing beneath the pinyon in the sand,
I’ll wait for you there.
Where nothing and no one else exist,
And time expands with every breath.

Tread softly as you walk among the manzanita,
Its red bark echoing of blood and life.
Its roots stretching deeper than you know,
And its leaves brushing you softly,
Whispering your secrets, ushering your fate.

Take your solace in the sagebrush,
Its sharp scent hitchhiking on the northern breeze,
as the dirt green stubble extends farther than the hills,
and farther than the red cliffs and thirsty desert.
Smile as you sleep, and let the moon kiss you slowly across the sky.
Goodnight sweet juniper.

She snored softly as the rain came down,
Intent to absorb the peace of every drop against the window.
Red Mercury, blue Venus and white Betelgeuse joined us through the glass.
She chuckled and returned to snoring, a wonderful dream perhaps.

My chest tightens when I think of you
and how beautiful you were when we first sat under the oak in the dim light of the streetlamp.
My fingers can still feel the way yours clasped so effortlessly into their gaps as we ambled along,
euphoric and in awe at what we found together.
My heart belongs to you, still refusing to accept what my eyes have seen,
that you betrayed me, deceived me, and left nothing sacred for you and I.
My soul hangs above me,
sodden and bowed, threatening to collapse from the weight of this terrible dream.

Please wake me up, my love,
And kiss me in the morning dew that has crept in through your window.
Tell me none of it is real,
And let me hold you tight as we make love while the sun smiles down on us.

Stale yellow teeth spaced between crookedly straight gaps,
constantly inspected with your little finger for forgotten bits of your last meal.
Thinning grey-brown hair combed every morning with dignity,
and a permanent scowl,
which twists into a grin at the most unexpected moments.
The Bulldog is what they used to call you,
though I never found out why.
Old age took your strength and unassuming dignity with which young men relieve themselves
free of painful swollen prostates.
Beneath your sun-blotched skin and flesh-colored hearing aids,
You're the same.
Ready to introduce anyone who gives your family the wrong look
to the glory of Heaven, or the fire of Hades
With your ******* fists.
"A gem" is what grandma always called you.
As though you were the most precious object in her life.
I look at you and see your hunch-backed figure
twisted with time and arthritis.
So un-gemlike.
Yet a gem, just like she said.

Time does not stand still as I had hoped.
I saw the changes in you, fleeting and subtle as they were.
I heard your words; kind, thoughtful and always enough to sustain me,
But I no longer felt their bare sincerity that always made me feel exposed and bare myself.
Your love turned into morphine, behind which you concealed a deeper ailment that you refused to show.  
And so I picked up this impeding world and placed it to the side.
You did not expect it, but I beheld you in a moment’s silence.
Your eyes as brown as I remember and your slender body gliding toward me in a dream.
And then you smiled and I heard your laugh again, and knew what I had searched for in this world was always here,
was always you.
I found my way home, and slept soundly with you at my side,
feeling warmth, relief, passion, ecstasy and the companionship of my truest friend.
We retraced the lines of our bodies that we once knew better than the streets of our small town.
And found they led to both the same and different destinations as before.
I drank you in as you slept,
And thought how long and hard I’d fought for this moment.
“I’m home,” I whispered to you in the night,
while you slept on, breathing steadily.