I want to go to the mountains
       and learn how to be like them:
       strong and rooted and steady.

I want to feel my legs stretch into the Earth,
       as if I am meant to be here,
       and not come tumbling down.

I want to let lupines grow along my arms--
       pinks, blues, purples--
       and cover what I've done.

I want to go the mountains
       but for now I wait in a valley.

Overhead, the moon has spilled her pearl necklace onto the sky
A night's snowfall frozen in time.
She smells of aged lily of the valley perfume
that she saves for special occasions.

Around her, the sky is whispering Schumann,
Mondnacht, I think.
His celestial voice sails between constellations like a cloud
And the stars give one last wink.

when you are quiet for long enough that the squirrel thinks you are part of the earth.
when you have whole-heartedly experienced the death of a worm.
when you spend $6 on a stone to bring the luck you don't believe in.
when the zinnias turn indigo and the indigo withers to dust.
when you begin to envy the worm.
when you don't want to bore the trees with your problems so you sit in silence.
when you listen to love songs and pretend to understand.
when you watch an oak leaf drifting in the current but it's actually you drifting and it will only take one red currant to be happy.
when it becomes painful to dream.
when 4.568 billion years doesn't seem so long but how is it only 1 o'clock?
when you wish you could be a comb jelly and float transparent along the black depths.
when you feel the earth suspended in nothingness.
when you can feels yourself suspended in nothingness.
you must wait.

When I think of you
I taste blackberries
The kind you pick as a kid
And put in a wicker basket
Crimson juice dripping
Onto the clover below

the floating liquid pearls
from the Moon clouds--
and--
the smell of Sunday.

the window, a shield from the rain
yet I Feel it in me
as I drip out--Drop, by
drop.

through a cord, Chopin walks into my ears
and sits--
never begins but has been playing,
as droplets become piano keys.

far away, a chime Echoes
from a spiderweb of
iron, under a velvet sky
full of ghosts.

little golden moons line the shops,
and their moonlight blends into the fallen water,
and paints the Street
with an aroma of rose.

the dull click of shoes on cobblestone
crescendos
to where I linger--
i turn, and he takes me by the hand.

each step, a note--
we move with the Rain.
composing a piece already written,
already played.

in joins the rose, and the
watercolor moons--
two fragments of stars
dancing underneath the rest.

but I slip; fade,
a halfstep removed,
and like the cobweb clouds outside my window,
my mind rolls on.

I come to the hidden waterfall to which I promised to return
To write a poem.
I passed people who shifted their eyes; unwilling to understand.
But here is a dark green smell that is fresh yet ancient.
Here are flowers like jewels and late-summer berries not even the birds have found.
Here a few fallen leaves are noticed after all.
Here moss fills in the layers of rock that are so carefully sculpted by the water that does not ever stop arriving and does not ever stop
Falling down the fall.

I try to choose a place to sit, not knowing if anyone will sit there again
When I see a perfectly crooked line of stones upon the water,
Waiting for someone to cross.
Not to disappoint them, I hop from stone to stone, feeling a spark
That makes gold melt across my shoulders and down my arms.
I wander on, my mind unfolding, and around the corner I see
An open river, free and wild and grand.
In the water are minnows, twigs never remembered enough to be forgotten,
And a handmade stack of stones, standing alone.
I turn and descend
Back down the fall.

I wonder who he is, this Placer of Stones.
If he came here, too, waiting for adventure to find him.
If he hoped somebody would discover his pile of rocks,
Simply to be thought of.
If he wanted to lay down and close his eyes and let the water dissolve him.
If he was just as lonely as me.
I feel the layers of stone in my lungs, the moss on my skin,
The flowers in my heart, and the water in my eyes
As they add another drop to the pool of endless drops.
And I watch as it, too,
Falls down the fall.