Forgotten forests old and dark,
Diagonals of light
Ancient as the days that were
Forsaken by the night.

What is beauty?
The order in Chaos as some old philosophers once thought?   A shy definition.  Order doesn't draw a thunderstorm in my chest like beauty can.

We are afraid of Infinity.  

Afraid of what infinity means for us,
That we don't really know everything or could ever even hope to know everything.  A realization that what we thought we knew is so unrelentingly more complex and storied than our brains can handle.

In fact, we don't know anything.  Nothing is familiar to us except the wholly misguided notion that such a banal concept can be used to describe what we often hold most dear.  Few can stand to admit that our familiarities are but grains of sand slipping through our fingers while we look out over the ocean of time.  
Hold tighter and they fall faster, cup them in your hand and the wind blows them out.  Only when they have all fallen do you notice how strange your hand looks in the blaze of a midday sun.

Afraid of what we mean to Infinity,
That is to say,  nothing at all.
Of the nothing that we are becoming all of the time.
We cannot stop, and cannot progress.

That we are tucked into our lives and wake up not knowing whether we've just started or whether we've been here ten thousand times before or whether we are even awake.

Some are comforted by the thought that life is just one big circle, that there are high points and low points but then high points again.  But no one really knows what happens when we come all the way around.

And most people are afraid that when we get back to the top, we will fall right through the loop into nothingness. We will become the last grain of sand that slips through our grasp.

We look down the foggy beach and see no end in sight, we look out over the ocean of time and see only horizon.

So Beauty then?
I am not a grain of sand, though someday I will be.  
But right now I am here with you, sitting on our favorite beach in Pleasant weather.
The sun overhead, the sand between our toes, the smell of the ocean.  
Scanning the horizon in hopes of seeing a whale or a dolphin or something remarkable,
But content to be here now all the same.

Our reconciliation with infinity.

How strange it is to recall the bitterness of a New England Winter's chill
On this  Summer day in Los Angeles, sipping from a glass of water as we both perspire in the heat.

Stranger still, that death comes in the Summer, after all that laboring Spring
When life's breathed out of bodies and gently thickens through the sweet smelling air.

Winter stings the nostrils, quickening the blood -  lets us know we are still alive.

But right now, I am in the midst of a pleasant day dream.

False pretenses abound!

A paper clip can also be useful for other things.

I just haven't figured out what yet.

Expansed in cloudless skies
Afternoon's promised all
A starry sacred finger.

Numberless specks of light,
Organized by time and weight.

So condensed specks of dust -
Some dialed in for sight, face up
Just in time for the exhibition:
Grandeur on a scaleless slate.

This is the reason to rhyme.

You may say "not at all"
But I prefer to step and fall
Into the black as though it were
so close to me - to reach and stir
with a hand the nebula's wisp
made of things both soft and crisp
hot and cold, as season's due
year in and out- Still - and true
Ceasing not but to amaze
So flicker the Pinpoints - spots of haze
Never changing - still they move
Moving change - hangs still above.

Only when I turn down my eye
Blades of grass that live and die
speak this ancient tale to me
of dartling lights and infinite sea.

Yet everywhere I look about and see that everywhere's about
I find myself lost in oceans of one,
A frozen sea that feels like the sun.
Ship to ship I wish to link
But having cast off my way to blink
I sink (into a hue)
I think (as if I have a clue)
I sink (then, into blue)

Out of my heady-ness there comes yawn,
The same readiness that forsees a dawn,
Witnessing miracles can't go on
So in I meander from the lawn.

Esperanza means Hope, not despair.
Love, not Death.
So why is my best friend gone forever?

The questions gush unanswered as my pillow soaks up tears.
I just want her back. I just want her to be here.  I just want her back.
I sleep hoping never to wake up.

As in a dream, wandering about, I'm lost in a haze unsure of my place or where I am going.  Thinking, always of her. Where did she go?  I open my eyes in darkness, only to see more of the same.

No sunshine wakes me today, only clouds,
Lingering thoughts of the alcohol, the accident, her smile.
I have lost my Hope, and the rain falls with me this morning.

*
Pain stings deeper than ever now as eyes turn misty, like clouds have drifted in front of them.
You can hardly see but through the fog of grief, or raining tears.

Thunderstorms are frequent, banging in your chest.  
Brief the flashes of lightning, a blaze of clarity hits:

Her memory is the seed you thought you planted in the ground. You visited her grave that morning, but she wasn't where you left her.  She is buried in your mind and in your heart.

You need to water now and when your eyes dry up, as they will, and return to sparkling beautifully, don't feel bad.  Feel how deep your roots are planted, they will only give you strength.

Clouds have passed, burned off by a brilliant afternoon Sun.  
She is not gone, but with you more than ever.

She is the warmth you feel on your brown shoulder on a beautiful day in Spring.
Her smile is the shining Sun of the Universe, ringing laughter from an eternal soul.

So don't feel like you have to let Espy go,
Only realize that it's time to let your little plant grow.

Some Jellyfish fly free
In the lonesome rice-wine sea
I cannot in myself be
As single sweetening algae

That you are
Is by far
The most alluring
Your upside’s down assuring

Juvenile fish
Who have one wish
Swim about in each direction
Craving only their own protection

I prefer the Jellyfish Lake
It has a certain give and take
The sun has always made me one
And I don’t ask for much but home

Drifting entangled
Nematocysts in symphony
Daring to touch
And eating Sushi

Stingers abound
But in you I found
A long lost love
For light above

Someday Perhaps
In certain relax
We could float
Beneath one boat

Breathe in, I'll wait.

Now Breathe out.

Does the world's intermingling bother you?

I sure hope not.

You are not a container, no matter how hard you try.

Let this knowledge entertain you when you feel the need to cry.

Grains of sand the Wind has buried,
Dunes of voices, no noises carried
Slamming doors and lapping shores

Hinged on Exhale

Whipping, Whooping, bows not drooping
“Who”, not “what”, “How” not “now”
Aspirates stifling