smile with the approaching punchline
and laugh at the end
do that for him
he needs a lift today

run your fingers through the weather
and walk with the wind pushing
in the small of your back
press your feet
upon the spine of the world

Maybe it's the changing weather
That draws me to you
And makes us hold each other close.

Maybe it's the length of the day
Making us reflect on the passage of time
And the moments we've spent together.

Maybe the numbers on the calendar
Bring us moments of nostalgia
And spark enthusiastic plans for the future.

What ever it is,
It fills us and illuminates the air.
It comes in on fingertips and shared stories,
And goes out on eyes and arms and gestures.

But it only happens this time of year
It lasts just a brief, fleeting twelve months
Then it happens all over again.

Tell me all those things
You've told me before
I'll listen attentively
And raise eyebrows in anticipation
As you get to the crux of each tale.

Tell me again the stories
Of people met and re-met
Of chance surprises and things said
Of sights seen and paths discovered
Of how good home felt at the end of the trail.

Just to sit across from you
At a chrome-plated and Formica-surfaced table
With a kettle going
And no breaks for me to squeeze in a word.
But oh, to see you again.

smooth grey-black stones
you held in your hands
i threw them one-by-one
into the dark oil-like water of the lake
they made intertwining radiating circles
that spread out slowly
to finally lap gently
at the crystalline sand
at the water's edge
and tickled you
between your perfect toes

Give it all away
Like barnacles that clung to you
As you plied the oceans
Sails full of October wind
Like the hunger, that pulled you forward.

Let it slip away
Like a heavy, sated python
That rolls languidly off a low-slung branch
Into the blackest river water.
While your white-knuckled grip held you transfixed

Set them all free
Like silk-spun cocoons gathered days before
To erupt into a mass of unsure-wings
And flutter up into streaming sunlight;
Your reaching arms grow tired from the climb

Lay naked then upon the glade.
The mosquitos and gnats will not buzz you.
The leeches will not try for your blood.
It will be as if you are not.
As your burdens were what defined your existence.

Cold, black and oil-like,
The monster flows quick and all-consuming
Between steep jaw-like banks,
In the dying light
Of the shortest days.

Edges were bordered soon
With slowly-gathered cut-crystal shapes
Like collected puzzle pieces
Sharp as razors, and finely decorated,
Like discarded dragonfly wings.

Soon myriad tiny folded-tissue flowers
Floated down in the stillest, icy air
And all signs of the malevolent depths and currents
Were hidden under a cotton duvet.

With the rising winds now
Great granular dunes
Tumble and sift across that place.
And the whistles and howls drown out
The tiny gurgling calls,
That are all the monster can muster
From beneath its white sarcophagus.