This dream
Unafraid
Sits close to me
      on slumber's bench
Our shoulders touch
One of us ephemeral
One bound to finity
Seeking answers
      in the other

Look down
Look down
The purple crocus sings

      Here I am --

Christmas comes:
A juggernaut
Lumbering through December
Overstuffed
Once benevolent
Now all razzmatazz
And who gets what
A free-for-all at the bargain bins;

And by the way Peace on Earth --

Tiny shops hunch in a row
On brick and clapboard feet
A huddle of windows filled
        with come-on-in
The sun slides behind their flat tops
As I wait for you on the bridge --

Clouds push and shove each other
Across a dusky sky:
                I watch you cross the street
A thief bearing a single plucked flower
Your pockets crammed with promises
        that won't be kept
But I don't care
My pulse is launching rockets --

The river beneath flows
        in irrefutable rhyme
Smells of moss and deadwood
        fill the air
Brown geese out for a swim
        are making social calls
As you take my hand
                Small
        Into yours
And I know
When I look into your eyes
I must never kiss you
As twilight tucks us in
        And brushes back our hair --

I -- am with her right now
The small girl who lives in my heart's recess
And fills that beating palace with hope --

She sits in a patch of grass, just beyond,
In my mind's open meadow,
Singing to herself and picking blueberries
        she puts in her pocket.
She counts clouds on purple-stained fingers
And giggles at the chickadee's song
                   Phoe-be!      Phoe-be!
Forever six years old --

Sunlight tangles in her hair
As she twirls and fans her sundress,
        plopping to the ground
Her laughter filling an innocent sky --

She is luminous
The love between us:
The deepest kind --

There is a stirring
      when one sees with clarity
            what lies ahead --

Edges sharpen, and
      the air pressure drops.
            Trees rustle where
                   there is no breeze;

A wind chime tinkles
      in a desolate place
            and it feels like
                  the end of time--

In the deep woods near,
The trees are poets;
They write their rustling
Lines against a paper sky --
Invited to their mystic house
I am brought to life,
        Embraced and entwined
        Like a prodigal child
                 Forgiven everything --

The forest floor is cool and still
Yet below, the earth is humming
Sweet-scented and loamy
Pulling at some memory that
        Beats ancient in me --

Such tempo'd spells sing
        Among the ferns here:

        Beckoning

Autumn's keen colors
bust out gold-flecked
      and lucent
A fetching masquerade
Til one day the facade drops
      The flaunting stops
And we face our transformation --
The body of real things

The cleansing verity of snow, yes:
We make our cold confessions
      to it --
Our sooth world unadorned;
      No high fashion statements
      No sweet smells from the earth.

Just the white truth of being --

The night is a portrait,
of quietness,

such sad silence
punctuated by
loud lamp lights
that brighten
empty sidewalks.

This used to be
the bustling streets
of a busy city,

but now I only see
spectral memories,
people passing
like smokey figures
that dissipate
on a windy day.

Everyone has gone,
upped and moved on
from this listless existence,
while I have become
the dumb one,
stuck in the mud
like a big red truck
unable to roll away
or back towards yesterday.

So, I look longingly
at everything
that can no longer be,
and mourn the loss
of all of those
possibilities.

Tonight I just
need
to lie in
bed
listening to the
sound
of this rain
falling.

It wasn't a lingering feeling
but a shot in the dark;
love letter once written
in the middle of spring,
until these words left frozen.