It wasn’t sacrifice, no,
It was meant to be invention.
How many times have I climbed
That crumbling edge of cliff,
Confident, fearless of the wide sky,
I stepped into a place where
There was only air.
A hot rush of melting wings
And I felt what it meant to fall…
A broken doll, all twisted limbs,
Bruised flesh, bashed pride.
I had been warned of the sublime
Beyond a mortal’s reach…
A human body is not meant to fly.
I’ve paid dearly for my careless hope
Yet continue to believe there’s a lucky star
Somewhere in my horoscope.

Inspired by E.E. Cummings

This universe –
Timelessly alive
Strictly innumerable
Life’s path laid out
With careful intention.
Then suddenly a blunder
Called death unkindly persuades
Every word echoed in the sky
That it may unspring a poem,
Pitching each metaphor
To senselessness.
Still, it’s the beauty of eachness
That heals immeasurable night,
Restores the silent truth of earth
Where no particle is irrelevant,
Awakens the first sleeping wonders
Of spring’s green gratitude
And transforms dream miracles
Beyond reason into the eagerness
Of possibility.

Daybreak: a sleeve of wind’s voice,
Gentle ululations, then a smear of gold

There’s a shuddering of sequined water
Reflecting ice-veined crags still frozen
In distress.

A living lens snaps the moment
All the way to its vanishing point.
Then, long, slow sepals, slippery
As syllables of a foreign language,
Transmute to a giant bloom,
A silk-red reflection falling upward,
Tumbling over pink-sheep clouds
Interrupting the stillness
Of this blue-grey universe.

There’s a ghost tree in the garden,
Spindly spine, non-branches,
Beginning as last year’s memory,
A stillness becoming a trembling
Of light, of movement,
Still frail but rallying
In its swaying aloneness.

The wind, nostalgic, strikes and dies
Upon the scant reflection of body
In the sky. What looks like leaving
Is an ongoingness of song,
A still-flowering of hope,
An unbreakable pattern
Of the art of renewal.

Against a fire bridge of sunrise,
Blue smoke still under the pines,
A humming bird clings to a sheet of sky,
Light-sensitive paper wings fragile
As spring ice. The eye, messenger
Of flash and shatter, stumbles on
This sudden angle photo.
The inexplicable takes form,
Arranging itself like a watercolour dawn
Opening in slow motion.
The conspirators of dark and cold
Are given short shrift in the moment
The world’s heart stops, touched
By the quick wing beat of April flight.

A small hole widening the giant picture,
One dominant trait diminished,
One altered gene, one missing link.
Iron tree leafless, perfect wing damaged,
Bumble bee caught in the chemistry of death,
Coocoo’s song silenced to a memory,
Acid bath dissolves in soil, lakes opaque
With filament.
Lives that touched and changed each day
Now pushed to the edges of void,
A fatal pause where “is” becomes “was”
And it’s suddenly too late to negotiate.

Could it be that a rose should follow
A tree inside his own haven,
For love, for protection?
I think of myself as a rose
But need to explain who I really am:
Softness, wetness held in a pellicle,
The moisture of my kiss enough
For both of us: my tree and me.

The quiet wilderness my heart
Might be violated, for I’m only
A small plant, holding all
My stillness within. I imagine
The warmth of being held
By those strong branches,
Shadowed in that leafy cool,
My petals protected, wood bark
Softening against my cheek.

Yes, you and I could grow together,
Each giving the other room
To be exactly who we are.