there is joy in this:
that you woke up this morning;
there's breath in your lungs.

Horror floats on the air
colliding with our ears in spurts,
the news of African strife, sounding
like sticks on a snare drum, threatening
to burst the comfort zone
of our drive home from church, so
we stop at the store to buy milk
and eggs and flour.

147 souls lost:
Girls in a school
trying to grow
to learn
to change
Kenya.

Terror awoke them in their dorms.
A broken voice of a dead girl’s father travels
through the radio to Nebraska,

I called
and called
my daughter,
and finally
found
a computer
and
saw
her
name
on
the
list
among
those
shot
first.

Turning the radio dial down,
We are holding hands
in silence.
One of us suggests we bake banana bread
when we get to our home.

Cue the banjo solos
and the violin swells.
Sleeping children in
withering weeping willow
high chairs
covered in creamed carrots.
Young cherry blossom lovers
shout curses,
shatter floodgates,
let tears flow;
petals are brushed away
by the wind.
Widows and over-easy eggs,
crossword puzzles and
sad irony on fifteen across -
"Murdered, 'Ides of March.'"
The weight of their fatigue
growing dark and heavy
under their eyes.

A waitress breaks silence,
"More coffee?"

A sleeping child awakes,
crying under the brightness
of the morning sun.

Let me not forget

Find and collect again
the moments of you&i;
in December wind and a field soaked with
raindrops

I dip my toes &
can't stop myself from jumping
into waves of retrospect that

Let me not forget

A pile of leaves
And the northern sky,
warn us
it's only a matter of time.

Diane,
out of control,
laughed and danced
on a hill.

prayers
paint the sky gray
change your mind,
on their lips

Baby, right on time,
the ocean air fanned
into that good night.

And we watched.

Nobody knows what the future holds:
keep on holding Diane
young,
or flip-flop,
try to go it alone?

Do you think you can go,
watch it all burn away?

It was only a matter of time:
Tottering off into that good night
on your own,

Baby it's a lifetime

like the end of day,
the wind picked up,
a wakeup call:
*the end of days

Our map seems stained
with the ink of Shakespeare's pen
dripping into our future,
Time plays with the plot
And we all must journey apart,
until we are together.

We wrestle time,
knocking out the days with patience
and mighty yawning.
Between us the fields of grass spread out
wider than fifty days on a calendar.

But at dusk, you are the star of my silver screen,
We unpack our minds like suitcases and
Move into the future together,
While apart.
Vanishing with a click,
Your goodnights soak the wind

In November
Time holds us apart,
Weary, but for the fullness of
December’s side-by-side mornings,
with toast crumbs and coffee breath
and kisses, anyway.

With hands full of promise,
you hold onto me and
we grow deeper and deeper
together despite a dreary
part of November.