short legs
patched jeans
kicking leaves
piled to my knees

remembering color
living in sea salt pines
leaves little to imagine
of autumn rhymes

sweetgum sourwood birch
sycamore and dogwood
apple leaves beneath the plum tree
ash hickory maple and oak
mountains afire in Tennessee

eyes closed
smell of smoke-
kicking leaves
to the wind.

r ~ 9/16/14

Catching feelings on a breeze, ingesting emotions inhaling you

I am you* in unseen places
The you, which you ignore
Forgotten and left behind

I am you behind the play
The nails and glue
That hide behind the picturesque facade

I am you crouched in wait
Perched and ready
To be acknowledged as truth

I am you inside your words
Shared anonymously
Naked, alone, embittered and brilliant

I am you crouched in the darkest corner
Shadowed by pain
Seething in silence

I am you oblivious to the knowledge
That in this twisted loss of self
You are in fact...**me

Tenere in Memoria
The world now coated in a film
Like faded pictures of long ago
Peeling layers of emotion
Distorting images, memories, perception
Longing to feel that feeling
Any feeling
Tied to when she loved me
Was it but yesterday a year ago
A lifetime in muted colors....still
Dulled by pain
Perhaps, too, by fear
A babe in her arms
Rebellion from the plain fact
That love, in any hue, is real
Friendship out of distance
A foundation of strength
Built on the shoulders of a woman
Stronger than any man
Fragile just the same
Bonded in life
So too in death
Razors slowly replace silence
Muted colors turn angry
Turn black as the void settles in
Every sunny day
A spiteful reminder of joy gone by
Memories revisited more often than made
Time, an immortal enemy
Longing to feel that feeling
Any feeling
Tied to when she loved me

My son runs, wrapping arms around
my nebulous waist.

"l love you, Mom!"  He squeezes tighter,
as if letting go would be his black hole.

"I love you, too, " I squeeze back, absent mindedly.  (Where is the cream? I need coffee.)

"I love you more!" he breathes, without pause.
He gazes into my eyes,
searching my planets.

"Oh no, that can't be true," I retort.
I forget the coffee, his eyes are starlight.

"I love you to infinity!" he exclaims,
staring harder.

He wants to sail the Milky Way with me.

"Me too," I reply, and remember oxygen tanks.

I'm speaking in light years, and I hope the sound waves will catch up to him.

His face cracks into a million years of forever, before he lets go,
dancing across the universe of our livingroom,
his solar system intact.

At least for now.

it's half-past our time
and i'm still listening-
a song about getting lost
in the canyons

-and the divide
seems much greater
than before-

if i don't look at you
maybe you won't see me

and i won't have to lie
here still
unmoved by you
and your kindness

i don't get lost there
anymore.

r ~ 9/8/14