Morning beach
flat calm but bright
sips with ice the winter light
glass reflected rockpool puddles
fill with tangled seaweed muddles

You looked up
from your poetry reading
and out the window,
and in your mind’s eye
you saw me, standing
at the end of a long pier
where I had just awakened
from a dream about flying,
with a look of wonder
on my face, because I had
never woken up before from
a dream standing up, except
as a small child who had
sleep-walked into his mother’s room.
There was a moon on the lake
and a small rowboat tied to the pier,
and I climbed down into it, and
as I settled into the boat,
the water rippled and
the lower moon began to shimmer.
In a visual way, it was musical
and I hummed along. As I did
the boat began to move with
no apparent means of power,
effortless propulsion just like
the flying in my dream.
All I could do was relax
and see where the boat
was taking me. In the magic
of the moment I stopped humming
and the boat likewise slowed
to a stop. I stood up and dove
over the side, swam under water
for as long as I could hold my breath,
and when I came up, I saw you there
reading, involved with my words
on the page, and I longed to be with you.
You couldn’t see me waving, you only saw
me climb back into the boat, rowing,
parting the water with a soft, diminishing
slap as I disappeared into the distance,
but I rose from the water, flying again,
and come up behind you; you looked away
from the poem, wondering what it all meant
and I put my hands together and pushed
forward with all my will power and
flew into your heart. That is where I am
now, and I intend to stay until you can
break free from your imagined reality
and come into my story with me.

I strive, like raindrops defying the stern gravity,
or like the wearisome erosion of quartz, persistent and silent,
like rainless showers in an overcast winter sky.

Such are the rare shadows of trees in a suffocating, arid city,
akin to the hope of abundant harvests under a relentless drought.

In the waiting for tomorrow, in the rigor of time and inertia of memories,
so brief and eternal like the wandering of a tender memory;
insignificant and perpetual like the queen of the night blooming in the warm darkness,
deep and penetrating like nostalgia itself, echoing in the silence.

another january rain above us,
same month, same city, same conflict,
a different ‘you’ in my poems.

i wonder what you really felt
when you slung my arm over yours,
when you relentlessly chased my hand,
those hard, seasoned fingers on mine.

i try to fight you off, but i wind up
linking our arms in a chain,
rubbing your back until i’m sore,
hearing you ramble in that car ride,
as you asked about my bruises and
searched for my hand before i cut you off,
knowing we cannot be more than this,
at least not now.

that night
when the sky sobbed watching us,
i wished you were drunk every day
and regretted that i was completely sober.

Long ago not so far away
Monarch butterflies accompanying you on walks
Squirrels twirling their tails
So others know that someone came to feed them again
The aroma of the nuts called to them
Placing a lei on The Pearl Harbor memorial
The quiet was deafening
Dual rainbows over Pearl Harbor bidding us farewell
The weathered and damaged plaques remembering Amelia Earhart
Hoping it will be repaired as she deserves to be remembered
All that and so much more leaves an impact
Sometimes forgotten but remembered in dreams
Henry David remember when I touched your desk near Walden Pond
Dreams