We gather at the failing tidesinging our harbinger songswhile dawn casts its amber net of morning.Then moonlight turns to a doubtable hazethat sharpens to reveal the edge of a confident horizon.Unyielding, unstoppable,it forces us to bury our petty woes under sand.Enough, it saysBegin the day, it saysCreate the day, it says.

I realize
that I am not the man
I should have been...

My nights are scattered darkness
becoming crows descending in light

to land on wheat fields
where they become golden,

where rivers of orange
run between green, flying shores

and I can swim along
on unsure footing

and still be accepted into your heart.

if i am
sober
wealthy
straight
clean
beautiful
happy
betrothed
unmoles­ted
lucky

how will i
convince you
that we are not enemies?

The fish swam without making sounds
in the aquarium in our bedroom. It was
ten-thirty, and you'd unplugged the motor
that pumped air for the fish and helped clean the water for the fish,
because all that humming, if left on, would keep me awake.
And every night this was the ritual.

And every night I would snore,
and you'd awaken and turn me over
and fall back asleep when I had stopped snoring.
And every night this was the ritual.

And every morning I would ***** about my world, over your bacon and eggs,
and you would silently go over some shopping list,
wondering at what point in our marriage
I started calling you
"mother,"

and when you'll start calling me "father."

Expect my sun to rise with yours
My trees to shade
My leaves to fade
My water quench the spell
Expect the grass to live as long
Expect the birds to court each song
Expect my sun to glow like yours
But I've a moon to tend, as well.

When the sun shone
And the waves subsided
And it was safe to wander again,

We strayed and tangled rope lines,
Forgetting what had stayed us
In one place,
When the first storms were raging,

When we weren't anchored.

As we are:

Quixote would stand
Surveying the span and depth of the drop.
Pick up a stone, throw it nowhere near
The other side reaching.

Check for bridges and fallen trees, none.
A good tail wind to aid a heroic leap, none.
A rope, and a team of horses
That could pull his side a bit closer to hers

For a year, for one hundred
He would walk his edge from one end to the other
Only to turn away, realizing
That fate and windmills are unrelenting

And hope is only a word
Written by a fool without choice or an exit.