Morning keeps weeping,
while I wage war
within myself:
Civil battles, composed
of pen-ink & lines,
of unceasing tension & grief.

I attempt surrender:
To cast off the weaponry.
To rejoice: barefoot
on my wood floor,
marred by litter:
Indolent daggers of charcoal & ink.

Time beats me down, a battle drum:
Rhythm moves me onward,
despite my cry to retreat,
Tiptoeing wordbombs & rainbullet noise:

A song to keep me alive
& the wind howls her tears against
my closed windows
& I wonder how this ends:

With ink-explosions
Or with sword-swipes.

Time keeps her moonlight
dripping, day after day
breaking, we reach toward
something beyond us:
We consider the lilies, the birds,

The trees budding promises into the air,
The breeze tasting of rainwater,  
The chalkdust collecting in our open palms
like childhood dreams, in our hearts.

Pulled forward from the shadows,
Fast, by the spotlight of spring.
We are understudy actors:
finally on the stage, but surprised
by the drama of split tea,  
rainkissed pauses, and almost burn
down the apartment.

All the while, the moon smiles thinly:
time-light in the sky, in our eyes.

We've a long distance yet to travel.
Our footsteps press into mud and freeze
toward the West, where we learned to be happy.
I gaze East into the unknown,
not quite deciding to be brave.
While you search heaven for a piece of your soul:
The skylark, ascending.

Time beats her pulse into
charcoaled stillness:
Persistence reminding a heart
to keep going

This story circles the earth
like a river scribbling a message
of scars and songs and a something-else,
swirling like old-fashioned script
beyond the binding of a book.

A vagabond leaves the trail of words
dropping from palms stained with ink,
blue from a wet horizon.
The salt of three seas press to her lips
as they part.

The wind brings songs to quench her word-thirst.
Syllables soak the world with sound
and the air fills with the smell before rain,

She tastes phrases of perhaps
and imagines the final page as a picture book:
a rowboat anchored with hope.

Dimlight breaks our time in two
&I; slip on the stillness of morning
like a new, clean dress.
Soundhues cover the chaos of my mind
in almostsilence.

Can you hear our nostalgia brightening?

Your voice, from forever ago,
echoes&dances; on the wings of sundrenched birds.
They greet the sky as an old friend:
soundhue hellos harmonize.
&I; am awake, finally.

Part 1:
&words; spill out:
heart-hued as a sunset accident
steeped in courage
&staining; my night sleepless

∈ prayer
our hands raise up to caress this newnight,
&cas;; scattered shadows like
spooked birds in flight

Part 2:
&inkscribble; spreads
fully across the tablet
of my sullied, aging heart.
Pages soaked&dying;
purpledark

weightedbeauty
after you speak the sunset-things
to fruition across the fields:
Nebraska solitude&desire;

Part 3:
&rising; again
on a third day, I must depart
&brea;; our day in two
(you&i;)

The sun&i; shatter time,
as the dawnmirror
remembering dusk
cracks today into the night

&words; escape
from parted lips&uncapped; pen
to fly above the broken world
as sparrows rising like

Son&Wor;; resurrected
pouring salvation on the stony soil
of our souls
like sundrench in spring

&script; winds verdant
vines around us
watered by heavenwords of
forever ago

Part 4:
&ink; fills up my bookheart
as I return it to a cage
&leave; the you&i; behind me
in a vagabond-blue nighttime

Hace un mes que te dije
No podía esperarte más.
Y el abismo entre nosotros
tragó: las plumas, los sonidos,
y la lengua que querría cantar.
Eras un pájaro con ojos cerrados.

Las alas de mi mente
Golpeaban el aire tranquilo
Dónde no podía encontrarte
Sino tu canción vacía sin amor.
Me encuentro a mí mismo
En el campo: me siento muy seca
y sola pero sabia.

Siempre me llevaban las alas
Al norte, afuera, al norte
Donde oigo la canción de mi pueblo,
De la gente que no me ha dejado
Por nada, aunque llueve.

Hace un mes que me dio cuenta
De otra forma de ser, cercano.
Me ha tocado como las suspiras
Del árbol que tiene hojas
con la riqueza de los ojos cafés
del chico distinto aquí:

Mirándome, hasta que debo salir.

Otra vez salgo con las alas
Afuera de lo que conozco
Porque, como un pájaro del otoño,
El viento fresco me hacen una seña
que yo debería olvidarme las hojas y los ojos
porque ellos se caen siempre
de los árboles a la tierra dura:

Mirándome, hasta que te caes también.