Off her curtains delicately
She takes the little ones outside, else she **** them where they light
And lets them fly free in the humid October wind

Sunshine has brought the late summer smoothly home to our cottage
Back from the razor cuts of autumn’s chilling rain

Like tiny cooking woks in reddish copper, overturned and spotted black
Lady bugs of late fall,
Busting out like small brown flower buds around the house,
Wings like petals

Inside and out
Skiing down outside our window panes, boarding towards safety,
Falling free,
Crawling on curtains, digging in tight

She sets these free for one more chance
Saving them
As I would
Seeing the bond that those who do must honor
And try to overturn the tumble that we toss in like weeds
And right ourselves and stop the spin

Somewhere behind my eyes as I rest
At that precious slanted sieve
A vortex forms, where life’s radio station spins its tunes
Softly, constantly, the songs of living play  
  

Concave not convex; oh so inward bent
Songs that filter in reality
Not affectations that filter out
The real thoughts
These songs: As I listen behind my eyes

There I lie wrapped in a warm blanket
Insulated by the down of warm contemplation
Open to the possibilities of my days
Moving at the patient meter of time
Sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly

There in imagined lyrics I drive a winding highway
Up and down grade
Side to side; a 4 wheel on ice; screeching
Relief from studded treads
Fear from the dreaded cliffs of my psyche
Steering by a wheel I hold untouched

Sometimes there I hear me floating free
Like a brilliant, March 1st kite, tightly tethered
A tail of memories keeps my level
A parchment lined with expectation
Thrusts me upward

Or there I lie by a black hills stream
Toe dipping in and out the water
Like a bobber with no real hook
Fishing idle prospects
Touching life’s possibilities obliquely

Or there I am driving small autos with my friends
Us like hectic bumbling actors
Seeking the road out
Spinning around fountains spewing water
Crazy cross way paths that
Pass in phase and double back

Simple songs of truth

what the birds do (ft Sophia J Ashlan and
Nateive Son)

Set your love free; America!, let it fly
Free it from those small cages in your mind; cross your street; America! And visit,
Cross to the side you think as dark
You’re grown up now; let it soar
Let it see a clear scene, from a new neighborhood,
Oh, view the scene angled wide
Face out and reorient;
And take in all the light
Oh, the precious cleansing light

And please America what the birds do through the air
So let your love

Soar love, Let the wings that spread over the nation; America!  (Sophia J Ashlan)
Shelter the ones who have given Everything to you
Like the birds be free; Let your spirit not wither;
Oh America, Do not despair; Perhaps hope is here...
Like a bird song, the song You love more than any other
Like a bird Know that your only limit Is you; America!
And live life like you always have
Free like a bird on the edge of a branch

Let your love rise, America!  And Search!
For its likeness in your darkest view
And where your likeness dwells; oh, embrace it
Cradle it in your *****; hold it there and rock it
Then more than double will your power be;
Seizing all that common
And lighter as it drops that difference
Oh, and lighter as it drops the hate

And America your coffeehouses are bogged down by bandwidth    (Nateive Son)
People addicted to screens cannot know what we mean and it saddens the jaw
So if you must stare into the light, stare into the sun
Be entranced by the holy radiant one

Let your hands reach out, America!  To connect,
As the sky connects with the horizon at sun set
Let that life force worshipers share, that feeling felt in the bones
And in your mind, and in your true heart
That you are webbed to all that breathes
And all that is in the universe, webbed by that beautiful unity
That spirit of the self, that all connected love,
And oh, let it reconnect this nation

And please America, what the birds do through the air
So let your love
              let it fly over America

The lines on this dusty road
The curly yellow lines of mothers
The stop signs of elders
Like the lines on this page
Drawn by columns of pipes and chains
Swirls and loops,
Are whispered by the muse

To infect your mind like they do mine
Crawl like no other and angle the same
Like no other

Is this map of disease? This mangle of dna
Like me?  Obscure and unmatched,
Unique, These words that we hurl
The pace, the spin like a baseball pitch
This pitch like no other or like some other
Lowly thrower?

These lines intrigue me with their varied
Shapes.. Hopeful slight diseases to pain your
Mind like the flu your body to
Alter thoughts like strep your throat
Little curly figures in your mind
Like none before with angles set the same

And of the heart there is a bleeding
Of the heart there is a leaking
Draining hope in colored drops
That pile upon the clotted dirt
And drain our souls away

And a heart is not for thinking
No reason in a heart
A heart is not for profit
Where’s the pay for all the work?

Yet every beat will push the air
Upon a chest in slightest fashion
And heave the buttons out on standing up
And so a blanket on the back
And never quit, oh my heart in darkness still

And oh the heart is hard to write from
Better luck from brain be given
For each letter that you stroke
Like the beating of that heart
May pry you from a different beat
Of those so close and easy bruised

And like a top so hard pressed first
By sacred palm these oh so many turns ago
To spin until the revolutions stop
And wobble slowly to the end
In its last slow  electric bursts
And topple to the floor

The water on my fingers turns from cold to warm
In a burst
And slips through my open fingers
With the night
As I step in bent to a cascade
Of a thousand pleasant bee stings

Water caresses my head
Like a slow dive into a warm pool
As I anoint weary aching
With shampoo and soap

Then only the water to ease and massage
Like the bubbling water flow of life
On its journey
Like time , that tactile fluid which too we cannot catch
Or hold
Like this morning water through my fingers
As I bow to drain out
The morning awakening
And rise into the fresh swirl
of this new day

Night Song:

Night, pray, notes of a song…
Three chord rocker
Groans of the trees on a noon walk with the old brown dog
Her bark to gain the outside
The Strained “s” sound of a ball in flight to soar
North wind pounding against the outside wall
Measured beat of the sprinklers in summer

Screams of the little blond cousin on the steps
When gleeful freedom rages wild inside
And safety cradles his growing spirit


Night, pray, words…
Unspoken thoughts between old lovers..
“Hello” of friends as they meet again after decades

Young brother and sister in play, familiar,
Hushed promises to share
Coloring new pages in the same book
Heads close together

Hum of a cloistered family at meal time
Joining in the delicacies of life
At a shared table

Our Father who art…

Night, pray, love…
Of  later day working family
Stretched full
And their journey to tie life
With a thread of gossamer
And not break