The ebb and the ebb and the ebb of your sad heart dear friend.  The
smooth wet weight of river stone;  those sleek dark ears in their grey-green window.

Clear-water sadness all the way to the bottom of the bed
where small grains furrow over the nose of an inquisitive predator.

I know so well your course and turn and how you stir
like an eddy above the tail of a hungry fish.

I see you rise and move. And swim
to another bend to curl into fronds that stroke you.

When you reach the surface, I fin-tickle your belly as
you stop the wing of a succulent dragon fly.   I do not...

I do not want you to go just yet; to the drenching wilderness,
stay a while and bask in the shallows.  Rest,

before you turn to the deep to hunt the elusive figment.
Stay a while and rest with me; empty your ears of whispering watery ghosts.


MChallis © 2015

in the cool clear air
of the mountain night,
as the stars glimmer,
with long ago exploded light.

i let go....
the woman,
of ninety three years
i let go...
the friends
who had shorter lives...
i let go...
those whose burdens, i bear.

i leave my salt upon
the dust.

and seed memories
to the wind....

knowing...tommorrow...
i will be desperate...
to find them,
again.

If tears are wires tying  eyes to nose
if sobs are sinew
if night is dark
and day be light
and death be  long
I tie me up with tears and sobs and night in death.

I grant the chances I came across to
see me as I was, earthly, desires
another bare ground.

Heaven scents I breathe,
of you and me. I see
tears, sinew, eyes red, light,
as living with death and
chances met. I take
my ever in my hand and cast it to the winds;
never will I be
tied down.

so many people
each one making their way about
opening worlds within
bound covers
filled with possibilities
and the words flew off pages
like young birds
into minds that will grow wings
and for a time will leave
the nest of everydayness
sometimes
as the book is closed
the still dizzying effect
of its power
has left with the reader
as they find their way out
of the labyrinth of pages