Morning Has Broken
By
Jude Kyrie

Stumbling half asleep
I pour my morning coffee.
The boost jolts me awake as always.
Our house is getting worn out.
The scratches on the wooden floor.
The cracked window pane
from the kids.
The paint with crayon drawings
from a baby.

Even my coffee cup that I  have  
used a thousand times
Has a chip in the rim.
Like all of us do now
after all this time
We have familiar chips inside us.

Flaws that we do nothing about.
Wearing our imperfections like
A comfortable old Sunday sweater.
Letting them all survive even if damaged
and imperfect.

Looking outside into the new morning
The rain is falling from dreary clouds.
It is settling in for a gloomy day.
And I find the chair with the ricketty leg  
That wobbles when I move.

Then I take a long deep breath  
It is  the only me time  
I will get this day.
In its tranquility
I find the warmest thought of the day.
It dances like mirror ball lights
Inside my chipped heart.
It smooths all the wrinkles and
chips inside our life.

And funnily enough  
All I can think about is you.

There is a change to the
rhythm of the light  
Is it something about the leaves?
Changing from green to golden red
Or a pencil line of black
edging the flowers petals.

The untimely change of an end
In the summer weather
chilling winds
Frosted air bringing lace curtain  
Crystals to the kitchen windows.
You had been as cold
As this  to me of late.  

I have craved your warmth
to the point
of leaving you like the summer
was leaving us now....
But I walked into the kitchen  
And you smiled at me at last.

Lifting me up your arms  
Light as the laced frost.
Holding onto me as tight as the
tangled clematis in our garden.
And the prosody of emotions
Colored my heart
like a kaleidoscope.

At last I thought
Poetry that I can understand.

They say an artist pours all his love
onto the canvas.
And in his eyes
the painting is never completed.
it is always
a work in progress.

waiting to be flawless.
Awaiting the perfect finishing touch
A simple brush stroke here
A touch of cobolt blue there.
Never satisfied that his
creation is complete.

And for me I follow my ritual
When you go to leave for work
In the morning.
I touch back a lock
of your tousled hair.
And fold it from your forehead
back in place.
Like a mothers touch to her son.

More as a deepest sentiment of love
Letting you know
that you belong to me.
And that my small ritual of revision
Is the deepest form of affection.

Something less than love
by
Jude Kyrie

I was only five when she left us
just a little boy.
That long ago summer
when the heat
burned upon the earth
and also our passions.

she left us with the handsome
man with the big car.
since then even after all
these passing years
I have looked
and searched for a place
to lose my sadness.

sometimes in the stillness of sleep.
I would hear the songs she
sang as I fell asleep in her comfort.
or feel her lips softly on my cheek.

I dreamt of her often
hearing
her almost forgotten footsteps
coming into my room.
I painted her beautiful face
in my mind
until time faded it to a blur.

Now a man no longer
a little boy
with torn jeans and.
***** tee shirt.

people say to me
dumb things like.
She is still out there
and thinks of you everyday.
With a mother's love in her heart.

I nod in concert with their thoughts.
I whisper sure or maybe.

But
I know inside of her heart.
it's something less than love.
yes for sure.
Something much less than love

She was ethereal in her beauty.
I always loved her of course.
But only from a respectful distance.
She collected glass animal's.

I always gave her one for birthdays.
She would kiss my cheek in thanks.
Not the kiss I craved but still a kiss.

Her perfect French braids
framing her lovely face.
I fantasized unfastening them
Slowly so her hair flowed
Like the soft spring rain
washing over my bare skin.

She would show me the
Intricate color mix
in her glass menagerie.
But I only saw the colors
of her hair her eyes her lips.

When the sickness came
Her skin became
taught and translucent like glass.
The weight loss
showing her frame
She looked more and more
like one of her
beloved glass collection.

Then when we lost her
She left her collection to me.
But the one I wanted
Was on a high shelf
Beyond the clouds
Far beyond my reach.

Full and bright the candled moon
Shines its glowing silvered bloom.
Widened eyes in wonder see
Silvered fruit upon silvered tree

All though the town the rooftops catch
Her silvered light upon their thatch.
Their gentle coos their rhythm keeps
of nightingales in silvered sleep

Squirrels sleep in silvered trees
with silvered fur in silvered leaves.
Silent and still in silvered dream
Sleeping fish in a silvered stream.

She stood facing
the fading sunlight.
High on a hill
beautiful and serene.
The backlight a halo
Around her golden hair.

She told me
she was a fallen angel.
And her wings
had been taken away.

She said she would
teach me how to fly one day.
It was a sad
yet beautiful untruth.

She held out her arms
and enfolded me in them.
The beautiful fallen angel
with the sunlit hair
and eyes as blue
as a summer sky.

The only one
In this wide world.
who can make
my lonely heart sing.