never wanted it to happen this way,
did not really think it could,
don't know what i was thinking,
now the blues have come, to paint
my whole day away, now i wake to
the blue walls all around me
what did i expect, never really
gave it much thought, not
known for being this way, did not
even clean off the brushes, or put
the tops on the cans, left it all
lying around, tripping over on my
way to the bathroom at night
wake you up with a start and
find that you never can fall back to sleep,
greet the morning this way, not after
being awake before dawn again, cause
the blues have come, to paint all my walls

i.
i drag the canoes over the granite shingle
of our island's beach the battered Aluma-Crafts
leave my hand a dark metallic looking gray, which
even smelled of metal we walk up to the
campsite, a ridge, overlooking the lake,
spread out around a fire ring set beneath
pine trees so thick that no understory grows

ii.
as the long summer day cools we decide after dinner
to explore choosing one of the island's many
game trails, leading from the water back up into
the woods beyond the campsite, we pack the
food back into the bear proof barrel, grab our
boots and set off down  the trail

iii.
the pine give way to a grove of aspen, the
leaves fluttering as if by some wondrous
enchantment, as the shrubs started to grow
thickly on the ground channeling us into a
narrower game trail with the large, misshapen
granite boulders like a maze stretched out before us

iv.
suddenly we stood face to face with a giant
bull moose with velvet covered antlers that seemed
to be at least four feet across, he shook his head up,
like a horse shying, so i slowly moved us behind a tree
     to give him the trail

v.
around the fire wrapped each in our
own paddle-worn thoughts
we could hear wolves, calling
across the island in mournful howls
such a delicate balance of nature at work,
my moose so full of life and spirit would be
     safe yet from the
wolves

to save money
i turn down the heat
when everyone goes off
for the day, i work in a
home office

i noticed that fish
tends to hide in his
ceramic log when the
house cools later in the morning

he peeks out from the hole
to watch me as i walk past
on my way to the kitchen
or the laundry room

i know fish likes his
bowl in the hall where
he can swim and watch the
life of the house around him
but i worry that he may
get too cold during these
short not tropical winter
days

i carry fish with me to the
office while i work, and place
his bowl on the table, next to
the stack of books i have yet
to review, so that he may stay
warm  during the day when
we are home alone
together

fish has no conversation,
and although he has no
patience for the writing
of William Gibson, has proved
a marvelous
listener

This rain
won't wash the pain away
or give me words to say
but I keep on walking anyway

you came
took my heart for play
but did not come to stay
only here to make me pay

the strain
has made me lose my way
haunts me every day
colors all the world in grey

please explain
how nothingness holds sway
why life came to such disarray
just how the blues I can allay

this rain
won't wash the pain away
but I might find a sunlight ray
maybe, I'll keep on walking anyway

O, Death,
thy softly gripped hand,
has reached for me
with such deliberate
sweetness,
embrace me now
fully,
while I have been
spent in my
finest moments

sometimes
i lie awake all night
practicing my French on you
pretending i am over too

those nights
they seem to be so long
with everything gone wrong
remembering all i was with you

these days
they rush at me so fast
a woman hiding from a past
keeping me from finding you

she
is a love poet
     sentimental
composing beautiful
wondrous
     poems

of romance
longing which
     emerge
in particularized, idiosyncratic
rhyme schemes,

and
     stolen
is such a harsh
word