Our city lights,
however small in comparison,
nullify the countless Stars
of the wondrous night Sky.

Perhaps
this is analogous to how
things that seem to be
so very close,
so very small,
so very benign,
so very familiar,
so very attainable;
things of our conscious creation;
can preclude even the very awareness
of far greater,
far more beautiful,
far more powerful things;
both external and internal;
both transient and eternal;
and why we must
take great care
and
act with great tact
and
act with immense respect
if
we, as mortals:
curators of reality;
are to be trusted
with such effervescent potency.

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

My darling, sleep, and never wake.
though it may cause my heart to break,
The morphine drip is a kinder fate
than that which would befall you.

Swollen limbs, incessant pain,
The Doctors think just days remain.
When life is only life in name,
No joy remains before you.

So hold my hand in your tight grip
as when our youngest child was born.
I promise I won’t let it slip
Until it is no longer warm.

You gifted me with forty years.
In health and sickness, we were a team.
Now, at last, you are at peace,
Sleep my love, perchance, to dream

behind every missile strike
a finger