Take a walk to clear your troubled mind,
And hear the pizzicato violins
In the wind in the pines, and see
The flaming leaves
Brilliant orange, dying in a fire
Of hot colors in the early dawn
The grey sky, cold and smooth
The leaves gilded with frost
Fire and ice lying quietly
In harmony
On the forest floor.

Take the time to
Clear my troubled mind
Take the time to shut up
And listen
Normally I write, but now
I must be quiet. Just be --
As the sky
As the cold granite in this forest, and
The snow-glimpsed peaks.

Do you love me?
I cry into the sky
Too resigned for tears.
Do you live, is there life, must I
Always try to read
What you might say in the wind and the trees?
Will you ever speak to me?
I touch a coal to my lips
It is dead and cold
I feel no fire springing to life in my soul
No words of prophesy tearing out.

The morning is silent.
I am ashamed.
I walk back to the road
And look back over the forest,
Alone.

Dear mentor:
You taught me to see the world
Through the eyes of opportunity
Gave me the bravery
and the delight, and desire
To flout expectations
Disregard my GPA
And soar to new heights,
Taught me to value education
As the greatest gift that could be given.

Dear friend:
You taught me to smile
Because I could make a difference
To be kind,
Because everyone is insecure
To laugh when the stress overwhelmed me,
To see the humour in politics
And philosophy and the human condition.

Dear mentor:
You taught me about debate
Taught me about family
Beyond genetics,
Bound by common passion.
And when you left,
I realized,
You'd taught me, in turn,
To teach others.

All I see is black and white and grey
And the ache of centuries
And all the white noise of humanity
Our hopes and dreams and fears
Unhappy
Lonely
Among the millions
Among the voices, drowning
Looking for meaning, for the raft
That will guide you back to shore
A shore of glass, beyond the grey infinity
Somewhere you belong
And the one you love most of all
Will come, and smile,
And take you by the hand
And lead you home.

Singing angels of the deep
****** me into quasi-sleep
To wander far-off shores.

I see the sky of molten lead
I see the waves, restless and dead
The souls that sing no more -

Piercing cry and banshee's wail
Sound from behind the heavy veil
Of immortality.

Monsters, lovers, all the same
In this dark and dreary dream --
The veil keeps you from me.

This morning the wind whipped
The rain into a storm
Each drop pierced with sunlight
And I realized,
I don't need you.

The wild joy of youth
In the face of a government shutdown,
History being made,
Tonight
I realize, I am free
To be brilliant
Kind, passionate,
All the things my parents
Don't want me to be
And you don't understand.

I can love someone else now
Someone who cares --
Closer than the wakening wind
Through the storm of life and death
Present in the glistening rain
And the sun taking its first breaths.

How do I always love more
Than I am loved in return?
My best friend, who can't even
Look me in the eye
And can't bear
To speak to me in public
And won't tell me why.

The mother, who can't
Even really love at all
Consumed in her past
Her silver hairs and loss of grace
She feels so bad for herself
I don't know what to feel for her.

The father, my childhood idol
My companion --
But now that's done
As soon as I became a woman,
All I am is "not son --"
Not quite what he wanted
Not the physicist to take his place.

My brother, ADHD
Incapable of having a conversation
Or keeping friends
Or understanding kindness
Supported in everything by
His father.

The world, unfeeling
Trees, unseeing
Wind, unhearing --
I love them all
Even my stupid hamster
Who I save from her own
Suicide attempts --
She will only bite me, but
I hold her more than I hold any
Living human
Close to my beating heart
Because her teeth are not as sharp
As the silence
On the other end of the phone.

I see the gasping glory of your pow'r
The flaming bed of rosy-finger'd Dawn
I fall and kneel at thrones of gold and pearl
I tremble to think how stars in darkness shone.
Immortalized in holy evening sky
The flaming suns that looked down once with love
Upon the life of royalty so high
The singing Earth to bear its glory strove.
Those stars in darkness beam now down to me
And look upon a humble mortal life
A promise, taken in a time of need
Now called upon to resolve inner strife.
In Heaven I may not yet find reprieve
Yet in His eyes I find the strength to grieve.