I have a cottage in the Alps
She is my destiny
When times are tough and nothing helps
She always comforts me.

I have no deed, no key, no claim
But she is surely mine
The mat shows someone else's name
But I'll be there in time.

Her meadow painted emerald green
So soft beneath bare feet
Bright alpine lilies fill the scene
My soul will be complete.

Tall peaks of Innsbruck to the East
Grenoble to the West
She feeds the eyes a lavish feast
She holds my mind at rest.

Dank ashcan heaps and subway grates
Comprise my current view
But patiently my cottage waits
I'll do what I have to.

The hands of fate will drag me out
Lift me across the sea
This fortune looms without a doubt
Because it's meant to be.

if thinking about you were a blanket, I'd have you covered for tonight
if walking with you were a candle, I'd have it burning bright
if holding your hand were a cradle, I'd rock it through the night
if remembering you were a capsule, I'd live forever on hindsight
if writing about you were reality, I'd make it see the light.

The great glacial climes of January
Absorbed the rays of the February sun
Yielding March droplets descending
Slanted slopes of April
Collecting to a shallow puddle of May
Steaming toward a June bog
Adjacent with the still swamp of July
Which rapidly flowed toward an August river
Forded off as a bitter stream of September
Slowing to the brook of October
Frozen by the calm chill of November
Halted upon a December dam.

Sam
wind-swept, strong-willed, free-spirited, butter-dipped
scion of this great nation-state
who loves sleeping until fully prepared for the confrontation of the bursting day, challenging the status quo, learning new secrets
who is afraid of the pall of mediocrity, the taste of plain blandness, premature decisions
who wants to see the fabric of the universe, proof of any empirical claim, the solemnity of what exists on the other side
resident of that which can be reliably demonstrated
Berman

I toil in anonymity
These words will not be read
You will not drink what's in this cup
These thoughts will not be said.

I'm buried on the internet
Far out of Google's reach
In basements stacked between thick tomes
No students will I teach.

I'm outside of your consciousness
My plight will draw no tears
I will not be anthologized
On passage of the years.

I shout among the swelling crowd
And blend into the hum
I'm heard here by myself alone
No more will I become.

Loves I have lost
Nights I have tossed
Encounters missed
Led me to This -

Streams you have crossed
Nights in the moss
Conquering fear
All led you here -

This work of mine
Now meets your eye
This the great troth
You and I both

As we walk the blazing black asphalt,
manicured and graded for modern passage,
we can scarcely imagine these same footsteps,
trod by General McClellan and traversed
by the very fugitives that he fought to free.

The civil peace was broken when the machinery came,
ripping railroad ties and spikes from her gut,
erasing and smothering the Confederate footsteps,
gentrifying the mud for our convenience,
replaced by the smooth tar of unification.

This new Mason-Dixon did not divide peoples;
it conected communities.

Now on our bikes we don our spandex and lycra in Alexandria -
no shoveling of coal for this engine -
with a sip of our energy elixir,
whizzing over the Sycolin bridge and past Tuscarora Creek,
quickly turning around in Purcellville for the return trip.