My sun and stars,
You flavor my life with light,
And guide me in the way of goodness
Just as the heavens direct sailors
Across the sea to safety at night.

I wonder, am I the moon of your life?
Fading always to the west,
I crave your eastern light.

Darkness threatens to swallow us.
Our lips meet,
One last eclipse.
And the weary men on the ships below
Shield their faces with calloused hands
And sigh, finally able to see
Into this bright abyss.

Whatever it may be--let's face it,
while these rain drops collect like moments
in the valleys of our lives, and rush
away from out-stretched hands
to water the fertile ground of youth.

We must face it.
This rain both lengthens
and diminishes life,
until everything has grown
up around us, old and green.

I miss when we called it ‘new.’
The watery seconds pool up at our feet,
sinking into mud as thick as memories,
so far from our lowered gaze.
We watch these droplets of time-puddles,

Together, afraid to draw ourselves tall,
to be as we were made to be,
and to face each other and the heavy clouds

of everything that is
and never will be

once this rain drifts on
without us.

And when the leaves begin
to grow from boughs,
pushed and pulled each day
by the wind—
Remember, as Pablo once told me:
waiting
and
hoping
are really just the same
act of the will
Espera

There is nothing so constant as
a dirt road in Nebraska,
beyond where the pavement ends.

This timeline beneath my feet
Crunches on and on,
Further than even I know.

This methodical sound of time passing,
Echoes off the fields of an ancient prairie
so superior to its cousin, the **** carpet

of my grandma’s house where
I would hide all my coal-colored jellybeans,
Pretending they were herds of cattle, grazing

Along dirt roads, such as this—
My venerable trail of rock,
Stretching out as far as time perfected.

A trail of ceaseless rock
Worn down by the years of
feet stomping to the memories

of the house, and the jellybeans, and the grandma,
all outlived by a dirt road that reminds me
*for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

A blushing German girl,
She walked for miles through breezes colored by
The lulls of a church *****
drawing chants from a faithful people.

Her skirts fluttered lightly,
clean and crisp like the wind,
And swishing with the cadence of her steps.

Strong steps, she passed to her daughter,
And later were received by my mother:
Generations of footsteps
Drenched in the melodies of German hymns.

I, too, walk wearing skirts of strength,
Squinting into the sunset
And our future.

It was raining when we met
your name on my lips:
fresh water glazing
parched grass.

I dip my fingertips into color:
a hardened shield against the whiteness
of yet another winter day.

Though the heart beats more fully
at the sight of a snowflake's slow air travel,
I'm frightened I'll simply disappear into the blank evening.

But my shocking grip of deep plum-purple
holds tightly to an envelope containing your letter:
Ten blemishes secured to paper pale as the world.

And when this hue flakes off, just a little,
to color the wild-wind of Nebraska,
I remain: rimmed in broken honesty and thinking

About my hands that stretch out in fragments
to float with the swallows in a white sky
and stain the far-off snow of, say, Alaska.