VOICES

To hear ancient music in the pines
or the bright moon speaking on
a cold, wild night.
Voices flow with song and speed,
loud as a busy highway, soft
as transparent air.

Vine leaves speak in whispers,
palm fronds shout their struggles
with the wind.I eavesdrop on
the gossip of the waves as
the blue hush of dawn fills
the morning sky and gulls
recite their own mournful hymns.

So many voices translate
mintues into hours, hours
into days. So many messages
passed on in time’s quiet
mystery, and the language
of heart whispers its own
gentle secrets.

Small boat, tiny port, an island
sleeping under hazy sun.
Mystical moist air, threads
of rose clouds decorate the sky.

On an empty day, the heart
wants for nothing. Radiance
pours abundance into each
instant of being, light's high
testimony chasing ghosts
of memory, sea's great chasm
surrendering to shore's sandy
welcome and the naked dance
of wind in wild palms.

An island alone accepts the risk
of solitude as evening illuminates its own blue glow
and the perfect silence of the stars fills the dark
with its own sweet comfort.

MOODS

Night mood-- a pond,
obsidian surface sleet-
metal smooth, patterned
by shaded spectres.

A brutal sky, winter’s
cold corpse, mind’s
underwater blackness
reflecting dark hollows
inside or morning mood
dark as coffee sipped
in loneliness.

And yet dawn’s sun-bleached sky,
a wistful mist clearing
to pure daylight. Hope
on the white wings of gulls.

Pearl-drop tears of joy,
the freshness of a summer’s
evening, a glass of wine
shared with gladness,
and mood, ever-changing,
blooms like an exquisite
pale rose.

JOY

Sudden and for no reason,
a smile gentle as a shadow,
a glass full of happy tears.

Sometimes a brilliance
full of wonder, sometmes
a frivolous mirage, sometimes
unbearable passion or an instant
of overwhelming peace.

A beating of soft rhythms
as the heart moves forward,
insatiable pulsations delicate
as wings of a butterfly,
early sun’s quiet delight,
ectasy of a new season’s
fragrance, summer nights
filled with star-years of
wisdom, jade reflection
on clear water’s surface,
clarity that nourishes
and soothes.

Effortless and fragile,
an unexpected touch
on any moment,
a treasure often hidden
but never wholly lost.

REMMBRANCE

There are shapes remebrance takes,
sometimes starlit sharpness, each spark
a scattered bit of self, sometimes the muddy
ground of grief.Remembrance, an imaginary book,
words of a separate world.

Often, there is travel through dark matter
to reach a breeze of willow leaves on water.
Perhaps a day with its own pastel shade
or a gentle night of ringing quietness,
a dove nested in the eaves of wind.

In dark and brightness, both anonymous,
nothing is sure but the narrow path
leading to a new now, guided by
the unseen force of soon.

FIREWORKS


A summer night and fireworks
break dark’s quiet whisper,
drowning fragile moonlight.

First a flickering, then
a blossoming of color--
wild and illicit –and
the air’s askew with booms,
delirious with fiery chaos
as a million man-made stars
tumble across sky.

A veil of smoke creates
a glorious illusion --
the art of pyrotechnics.

A stolen moment’s exaltation
without the wariness of danger.
As fire jewels dwindle to obscurity,
there is a strong spell of reversal.
What seemed like revelation fades.

Universe returns to mystery
and mind to world’s reality.

SEA GULL

Strange and wild
his laughter-silvered cry;
alone he navigates the heavy
silent blue inventing each
new hour, impaled on a ray
of sun.

On the doorstep of invisible,
he shatters nothingness --
a glide, a dive – he’s gone
beyond his presence behind
a dense gray cloud.

Then suddenly a splash,
a rupture of sea’s smooth
smile, then a wheeling
soaring swing and he’s
flung into the shouting
wind.

With easy grace he defies
the sanctity of space, rides
relentless tides, a fearless
spirit ever rising, disappearing
like a dream lost in waking,
like a mood forgotten in
the passing field of time.