At that winter smiles in the North
and melts into mist
and returns a few weeks later
with soft snow flakes from the sky,
on an April afternoon
the same day the sun wore
her yellow raiment
and the grass put on her green dress
in preparation for spring.
The trees know better
and wisely kept their leaves tucked
up in their buds and sleep still,
warmed by the hardened shell of their skin.
We learn it is better to wait, to plant our seeds
–instead of letting their promises freeze
like our uncovered fingers and toes
during the false fade of winter.
So the sandals are put away,
and the scarves, gloves, and fleeces
come out of storage.
It feels cold now, but you smile
because you remember that
you are still warmer than the days
that turned your fingers blue with ache
and turned your breath into mist.
They say there is a season for all things,
and now growing things lie still,
except for you.
So, you wait
and grow more patient.

We talk about beginnings and endings
like we know what they are and can spot them
coming around the corner or predict
them like a green light turning red in traffic.
But really, we're just stuck in the middle
of a book without titles or chapters-
a movie without rewinds or pauses
or dramatic music in the brackground.
Instead you'll hear your steady inhales and
your exhales, your heartbeats,your thoughts echo.

Picture a room with white walls, small-windowed.
Through the window, no moon shines like it should.
This view knows streetlights better than starlight,
in the tender dark of this April night,
but someone's still writing about their glow.
And I know her eyes are heavy with sleep.
Still she watches the silver twilight seep
toward the tall lamps-posts, like spilled earl gray.
She wishes like a dream that it would stay,
that she could stave twilight from its lilac fade.

Your friends' new place is by the Red River;
You notice the wood signs hung on their wall:
Stencils with the first letters of their names
comprised of corks from bottles they emptied
and another--"Pasta and wine, good times".
When they talk, it’s about
parties with beer, wine, and ***** spilling
out of cups, down dresses onto the floor;
recalls of day-drinking
and smoking cigars on the balcony
in college and oh, just last-night’s partying
yes, at Jason’s wedding
reception in the Ramada ballroom.
Don’t forget the leprechaun loop of bars
downtown on St. Patrick’s.
or the party buses that bring you there;
the first stop will have a schooner waiting  
with Long Island iced tea.
This talk of drinking makes you all hungry,
at Barbacoa you order tacos
and margaritas.
and think of ordering another round.
Another day, you drink pink lemonade
at Olive Garden and ask, How would it
taste in a cocktail?
At work, coworkers laugh off a hard day
and someone says, “I need a drink.”
And someone adds, “We all need drinks.”
At the bonfire on Saturday night,
someone laughs about the campus’s bikes
being thrown and found in the Elm Coulee
and another adds, “We like to drink here.”
Someone says, “That’s why I have a big cup.”
Who needs a bike anyway? They have cars.
Some of your friends drinking are driving home.
When the cup passes to you, you sip some.
The fire flickers and blows smoke that flies
into the wind over the rest of town,
over a river that can’t quench its thirst.

There's something about
opening a bottle of colour -
knowing
that any way it spills
won't spell A-R-T at your hands.
let's call it the audacity of trying,
and
move on.

Same thing for a lump of clay -
lying in front of you,
waiting for creative violence,
but you know that your thoughts
don't have fingers,
your ideas don't have arms.
let's call it the pointlessness of wishing
and
move on.

Don't look at the camera -
the eager buttons waiting,
glinting in the hope of your touch
a lens waiting to be turned -
knowing that your eye can never
translate your sight into art,
your vision will never equal
an image.
let's call it the imperfection of waiting,
and
move on.

My last hope is a pen.
my fingers rush over it,
finding solace in known grooves
where my fingers have settled
time and again.
i call it the comfort of a story.

and this time,
*i stay

Starlight is just a crack in the night sky.
The night is just a cape for the daylight,
a shadow spanning the earth's blue surface.
The earth is just a blue marble spinning  
around the sun, catching a flash of light.
The sun is just a yellow bonfire
roaring in a space without sound or air,
like in your head when you read these lines.
This is just a poem trying to describe
the magic to be glimpsed in the night sky.

They say repeating your words loses meaning.
They say repeating words loses meaning.
Say repeating words loses meaning.
Repeating words loses meaning.