I never understood the those left behind
Until I became one.
Trust and love are live in the dictionary then
And loneliness presses in like the cold, empty depth of a well.

But when I was abandoned, no one counted on me
Like the little ones whose mothers struggle
With their pain and have to keep moving…

They wear a mask through the day and have shoulders to carry
The load of two and they cannot falter
Lest the small ones fear and suffer the loss of
Of all that was left.

But at night the mask is off and the dark void
Fills places where pieces of life are missing.
Love is gone, the bed is empty, the money gone and
No one is there for warmth.

I never knew that part, but I know one who did
And she is strong in all the broken places,
Though how I'll never know.

And you who read this and suffer, know that she
Lives in your mirror if only you look.

Early fall colors are matted down. flags are dead, stuck to their poles.
People hustle as they walk bent over in hoods that hide their faces.

Hours ago there was the sun and warmth, pretty leaves, smiles.

Hours before that I was young and the sun never went down.

Then my rains started and my head went down.
The rain left lines as it ran down my face
I couldn't walk as fast, I hid inside from storms that always found me.   
Faces I knew turned down to avoid the rain,
I cannot see them now from here except in pictures
Taken when the sun shone and we all could smile.

Yet there is a fire in our hearth and one face that smiles
Though she too had been out in the rain
Until we came in together and found a place to keep warm.
In that the rains have served us well.

The weight of my life pressed behind me
Pushing like a dark wave for me
To outrun before it could swallow me.
I drove to work with thoughts
Of the must things and the must nots I had to obey
Or suffer a fall from which I could not rise.

My eyes were locked on scenes in my mind
When I turned a corner where a small bank of fog
Had taken temporary residence in a field.
The sun was rising behind the tree line, so it
Was safe for the fog to sit here for a moment and change the world
Into something soft as it piled and flowed in a gentle breeze.

It drew me in

I almost felt it on my face in the cool morning
I wanted to stop and run into the bank where the pressure
Couldn't find me and the must-must nots were not
The fog was all potential and would whisk me off
To where I should be…

Prisoners call fog the parole man because it can hide an escape
I see why now for I needed to be released from
What I had wished for and received.

But the car moved and the sun rose and the wave pushed me on

Someday.

Someday.

Somebody posted your obit and
The name seemed familiar.
Then others followed with how they missed you.
Turns out we went to school together.
And I can't remember your face
Or when we spoke to each other
Or the last time I saw you.

We lived lives with no intersection
And not even a remembrance even though
We went side by side through times
That made us who we are.

I like to think we were friendly,
But how could that be?
I would have remembered you face when they told me
And I remember nothing except your name was familiar.

So why do I feel a loss?

Life is so expensive
The cost is not in gold,
But in effort we pay, and pain we endure,
And the compromises we make for love.

The beauty of life is that we do these things and enjoy
The moments when the cost seems small for the experience.

But she sold it for a needle full of junk

And we let her, you and I…

There was fog this morning softening
What I knew into whatever I could make of it
My mind fell out of life and into  
The business of re-constructing reality;
Like when I was young and could dream
Of things to come without limitations because
Young minds are endless fonts of possibility
Before life replaces the pressure of belief
With the exigencies of work, and pain, and the weight of broken hope.

But the fog restores by turning the hard edges of the world
Into soft things that my mind can mold.

Gravity becomes the illusion in the fog for everything floats.
Light is no longer sharp and discerning, but gently hides imperfection.
Shadows who fear the day walk bravely in the fog and carry
Dreams I had, and quiet memories.
The sound of the world is muted and I cannot recall
My failures, only my hopes, my dreams, the warm memories.

All this rides the fog…

Its mist gets in my eyes.  The breath of it is cool.  I feel it around me

I wish I could stay here forever.

Long ago the tree was strong and green,
But that was when the air was clean
And the water that fell as rain was not tainted.
So it grew and ignored what was happening
Reaching only for the constant sun that gave it life.

It slept through winters and sprouted every spring
As the earth turned and lesser lives were lived and lost
Always turning its branches to gather the light
Sinking deeper its roots to stand taller,
Time moved slower for the tree, but it moved nonetheless

It moved.

The weakness came slowly, creeping into its roots
From the soil that caught the tainted rain
Its leaves were less each season, less light was gathered
The winters grew longer and more brutal
He could not reach so high, though he tried.

And the time came when no leaves grew, but he was not gone
He stood his ground with bare arms stretching still
For the sun, who had never left him.
He stands there now, not forever, but long enough
For us to see the haunting beauty of a life now gone
Who in his time was a giant.