Outside life is in its green glory
springs and explodes with gusto.
Trees and plants shout with joy
irrepressible energy pulls me forward
leaps ahead from my dust and darkness
and takes me into sky from my fright
transforms my darkness into light
I thank you life for appearing in my night.  
It is in this mixture of shadows and sun
that you appear most awesome overflowing
running over the fearful edge of my soul.

I find myself caught in recycling
not cans and paper and glass
but thoughts and actions
habits can help
but being stuck in the habitual
sloshes me into a swamp
dank and stagnant.

What if I broke the cycle in half
opened myself to hidden reaches
of my mental soulful caverns?
Maybe this interruption
would reawaken my muse
from her drowsiness
sparkling and sprinkling me
with poetic stirrings.

It’s worth trying.

He is walking slowly where step by step
measure by measure in the lush meadow
he plays a dulcet meandering air
inviting me to join him there
unbound by dark and foreboding forces
of the viral pervasive present.

I join him and we fly to the open plain
recently refreshed by rain
Oklahoma and its green fields
where the spirits of Native peoples reside
and in soft spring breezes glide
and remember their ancestors’ names
and the simple childhood games
they played kicking up dust of earth
in earshot of their mothers who gave birth
to those precious souls and bodies brown
made of love and Red River and ground.

The flute’s tune again catches me
in its lively streaming strain
and pulls me up to airy heights
to join the dance of darkness and light
in spirit realms where beauty
and reality tango together in peace.

The life of parents is gauged in teaspoons
of sweat, vinegar, blood and tears
in early mornings and tire of late afternoons
all collected in a cup of salvation for years.

Small sufferings and moments of pain
become sacrifice for a child’s little sins
so the youth won’t suffer the blame,
cost of loss, but the joy of life’s wins.

All these payments made without wrath
may never be repaid to them in their time
but lessons taught will etch a path
for a child to grow up into its prime.

Anyone who loves the unkind
or selfish or one who has spurned
virtue or left goodness behind
pays debts the errant don’t earn.

Mom has been gone for years
but just now I was brought to tears
from a poem about my childhood piano playing
and how she patiently listened, probably pained
Mom told me she loved hearing me play soft or loud
and ‘twas the one thing I could do to make Dad proud.

Replaying years of hurt for mistakes they made
bound me in shadows and shade,
but now late in life I again recall
the character of their care for my soul
and cherish the humanity of these two
and their suffering that got me through.

I’m tired
my body seems to be telling me
to go to bed and sleep
but I know I couldn’t,
for this poem is lurking inside
and won’t be denied
as much as I try.

Can poems be found in the tired
in the brain of one who’s wired
to look here and there and everywhere
like the bird perched atop the chair
in the backyard, its head swiveling to and fro
watching for cats or humans or hawks flying low?

I guess I shall see if there is a poem taking flight
here and now teasing twilight
will it swoop and settle in my mind
will my muse become archly inclined?
Or maybe I’ll dwell on that attentive bird
and in that dwelling find the words
and take a lesson from the throat of its being
breaking forth in its flight or its singing.

Is there a verse down there I’ve been saving
while the sapling Tallow is waving
saying goodbye to the dying day
dancing the wind in ***** ballet.
Is there a line
in the recesses of time
between vital concerns
and issues that burn?

I hear the cello’s refrain
playing nearby in mournful bane
it takes me back to practicing Strauss
on the piano, filling our house
with dissonance and verve
getting on my mom’s last nerve.
But oh how music flourished and reigned -
the joy in my soul could not be contained.

Thinking of what music has meant to me
and composed in me a sweet symphony
brings me alive here in this sacred space
replaces fatigue with energy and grace.
I stayed here long enough to find
these wisps of memory and rhyme
that so often provide the spark
to lift and fly me out of the dark.

My emptiness gnaws at me
erodes the dark coating on my soul
my hunger is a yawning bowl
of clear glass yearning to be filled
with your love
what nuggets of golden light
or even what suffering you might
will to me
to grow me
into what I need to be.

I trust you with my hunger
with the calluses
on my hands and feet
and the hardness of my heart
to touch, soften, repair,
and birth there
some fibers of new life.