forever goes whether we know it if we
breathe or don't it goes
like a donkey
in a cart slow
or fast speeds on  highways
in  Ferrari's or on the lawn with
our kid's
or looking back at pictures
or boiling water,
if we don't look at it
while it happens.

when young I walked the golden path with my father into

our talking place. Leaves were green buds were growing seeds were
sown trees bowed down. Birds had their nests ready for their young.
Robins fluttered in their tender loves, Blue Jays coyed and cooed to their ones.
Squirrels  played among the dense greenness, jumping like acrobats,
impressing me and the young girl squirrels.

I was thirteen,  I was grown, Oh, did I think!

My father so wise, said "All is life is beautiful. All has a season. Trees have a name as do squirrrels. You have mine. I am proud"

That was all he said.

ever is where?
I am at it
      I never have seen
a ridge where night
touches the dew- or
     sunlight glows
on both the day and you.

There I sat upon
   a ledge teetering
fearing heights
              and the depths of darkness
     below. Tottered
down upon spoiled grounds.

Ever is where-  over a hill?
    may we ever see
sun glints-
      on green
      eyes
strong trees,
          sowing seeds
in sunlights.

I have  loved
    swollen at times
           to the size of mountains
over the brooks and streams flowing
        warm  'tween my arms
issuing
       the life flows
pleasures and sighted
            of afterglows.
If then the sun stopped
           shining,
I would never
               notice.

each drop
    every one
from eye or sky
    on window,
cheek,
      crys

dad left
for his second tour of duty
on my third birthday

mom kept
a jar full of jelly beans
on the living room coffee table

every night
she gave me one to eat, saying
"when these jelly beans
are all eaten up,
dad will come back home"

sometimes
i would sneak another,
to help dad come home sooner

one night
the phone rang
and i watched mom
wipe away a tear
as she filled
the jar
back
up

as fragile
as a songbird -

her hands

knotted and spotted
from many winters


november came one last time -
i held her hands in mine - gently

- gently, she flew away
to where songbirds go
when it's cold in the mountains.

r ~ 11/18/14