I see you
          falling
               through
                   the purple air
                       eyes bulging              
                          teeth showing
                              like a blind, hungry tiger
                                      without a sun to guide
                                             without a son to follow
                                                  without day or night
                                                       to know the alligators
                                                        on the black river
                                                       in the jungle
                                                   where the russet snakes
                                                  wrap themselves
                                                 around your mind
                                              squeezing seeds from it
                                                      
I see you falling from
     the emerald tree, first
           clinging sanguinely
               then giving in to wind
                     and gravity, toppling
                      dropping like ripe fruit
                    splitting open spilling
                   your tawny seeds sharing
                your succulent flesh, flesh
               which feeds succeeding
             trees, trees where you can

sit to watch
             the tiger
                   and
                      the
                      alligator
                        struggle
                           struggle for
                              a place to be
                                     before they fall
                                          through
                                             the purple air
                                                air that forces
                                                 out the seeds
                                           seeds spewed
                                       on the green
                                    granite mountain
                                under the sizzling
                              saffron sun.

Translucent green leaves
Ripple with windblown shadows.
Stone steps lead nowhere.

The press of the snow
Bent and broke the bamboo stalks
With hardly a sound

Relentless Spring rains
Turn the garden into pools,
Soaking tender plants
Overflowing the gutters
And weighing down the bamboo.

UN PEU DE SOLEIL DANS L'EAU FROIDE

Memory
a Polaroid.

Sunlight fading back
into the nothing.

Time stealing its image back
from the photographic process.

Loss
a splinter

still visible
beneath the skin

trapped in a whorl
of a fingerprint

identity's
whirlpool of uniqueness.

This splinter of loss

it's small agony

out of all

proportion to its size.

Invisible tears
imprisoned in

old eyes.

It’s not that big a surprise
How much I adore Amsterdam
Like immigrants long ago
So welcomed here just as I am
In the historic Lloyd Hotel
To witness a wedding so swell
I’m glad I’m here in Amsterdam

Canals and bikes aplenty
Whizzing past on every street
The Keukenhof gardens amazed
VanGogh’s Museum made me weep
I’m glad I’m here in Amsterdam

We walked for miles & took the train
Our flight home I made not a peep
It must have been that Space Cake
We ate it and went right to sleep
A fond farewell to Amsterdam