every time
a c o l o r
catches my eye
(which is very often)
in my mind
i instantly analyze it
break it down into its primary basics
then reconstruct it
in my mind with paint.

for example,
what first i took as pink,
upon further gazing
is really more of an orange.

start with white
add |this| amount of yellow
then this tiny minuscule
shard of (red)
together, white and red make pink.
yellow and red make orange.
pink and orange are different
points on
a spectrum.

and you can see how
close
orange and
p i n k are.
and how so very
far away.

and then that
blue-purple light
juxtaposed -
that is another thing
entirely.

does the caterpillar
fear
the entering of the cocoon
in the same way that we
fear
the entering of the tomb?

Now you are there where
the time turns out to be a
mixture of fear and joy.  
You live between the lines
and spaces of my mind.

We root for all the people
left on the battlefields
of this ****** war
on which we will either
sacrifice or lose to make
the last days of memory
and the dance of the day
our hymn to the silent
future.

We suffer, you and I, the
days of darkness and
strange things that are
coming at us like leaves
twisting off the trees.  We
arrange ourselves between
the dates that crawl from
the calendars. You say
we are going to get, in
the last days of autumn,
the first rays of Spring.

When I Think of you
I pray.

Caroline Shank

and now the sky is falling
a wounded heart is calling
heaven's filled with graying stars

life is full of leaving
but love is full of healing
they never stand that far apart

so i will stand as witness
and see the snake's rattle and hiss
as nothing more than what they are

and i will be just one
and bask under the sun
and heal this broken wounded-heart