Golden morning breaks –
New life, encapsulated
By shadows, illuminated.

You can smell the earth
So much more clearly
After rain.

A turn down
An unfamiliar lane.
A new path, hiking
Vast forests of pine –
They are breathing.
Dry needles and thistle aplenty;
Watch for the sharp
Prickles and barbs.

Leaning into the pain,
The imperfect afternoons:
Blissful at times.
Dissolving into rich
Orange hues.

A forge of blue metal
Lays cooling, tonight.
Souls clenched tight;
Entrenched, dug in.

A white flag raised –
Prematurely, perhaps…
A surrender inside
That vacant stare.

Twilight sits inside
Your sinking eyes
As I look to the sky.

The light dances lithly
Amidst the clouds,
While a solitary
church bell sings

As birds
And the horizon
Seem inextricably tied together,
Chasing that freedom together
To far away places.

I write with the hope
That these words will spring
Tendrils, climb up from seeds
That lay inside your heart.

Grow up over spaces
That have gone dry,
Turned cold.

Morphing from brown
To green,
In those neglected crevices
Of your being.