in a cathedral of my own making
i am dust basked in sun light
with hands stretched out
to love the pillars
that have held me up
when the stained glass windows
were celebrated for the
light they let in
and the most divine part of me
the cracks of my temple at
the bottom of my spine were
left to widen like horizons
begging to be spread farther
were left like myths untold
but all the stories are true
and the smallest parts of me
are not fables and myths
left to keep your imagination
alive and you afloat
the smallest parts of me
are particles that have
held me up longer
than you have
and i may be alone
just as many of us are
but who has time to
count a star
when astronomers count
galaxies on the tips of their fingers
and i am but an atom of the universe
just as we all are

Chill give sway
to tropic breeze
rain consume ditch
and shallow space

mock spring
frogs, birds sing
fools believe
spring’s arrival

frigid air
soon returns
frost burning
hearts too frail

blue
like the sky
before night
swallows you.

I was told when six
lighted smokes show up for miles
during a blackout

Toward home, Christmas eve
lighted candles on tree bough
pierce through dark windows

Moonlight can become
bright enough to cast shadows
beneath my movements

Walking alone
along the neighborhood greenway
aware of unique colors and sounds
normally hidden
or camouflaged by toxic thoughts
that chip away beauty

Centered upon each step
each swing
of first
the left arm
then right arm
signals of life

Noting strength
surging through
each calf and thigh
careful attention
of each intricate
movement of a body
complex as spider webs
on a damp morning
braiding from a woven-wire fence

Notice each moment
see how each second
contains now again

The Mountain keeps all secrets. Crusted lichen on timeworn boulders. High altitude longing for alpine daisies. Carefree blossoms, long ago plucked, gone to seed, restless in the fertile ground.  Wildflowers bloom shortly sweet, fleeting paintbrush to layered canvas. Fairy slippers lost on crumbling doorsteps. Glacier lilies pressed between avalanched pages.  Forget-me-nots in forgotten blue hollows. The common harebell feels anything but common when seen through a lover's eyes. Forest tiger, your bulbs taste bitter. Purple lupines sage with fuzzy-leafed logic.  Fireweed, *****, unadorned, eternally reaching. Lousewort, spreading phlox, leave this scarlet alone.  Listen to Indian Henry, it's bad luck to trample what is sacred. The devil dreams behind steep and sheltered walls. Keep to the Wonderland, bypass this Trail of Shadows.  Seek ancient hunting grounds, steadfast shelter in the wooded clearing.  There is no pearly everlasting along these old trails.  Paradise lost may never be regained.

Her body is not so white as
anemony petals nor so smooth—nor
so remote a thing. It is a field
of the wild carrot taking
the field by force; the grass
does not raise above it.
Here is no question of whiteness,
white as can be, with a purple mole
at the center of each flower.
Each flower is a hand’s span
of her whiteness. Wherever
his hand has lain there is
a tiny purple blemish. Each part
is a blossom under his touch
to which the fibres of her being
stem one by one, each to its end,
until the whole field is a
white desire, empty, a single stem,
a cluster, flower by flower,
a pious wish to whiteness gone over—
or nothing.

They don't speak, all the long,
winding bus journey.  They are
strangers, with nothing in common
besides the No 50 route
and the free travel passes
afforded to them on account
of their quietly advancing years.
She sits in the seat in front of him.
Their eyes never lock.  His myopic
gaze through thick NHS lenses
rests neutral on the back of her head,
her softly blue-rinsed curls and the collar
of an eminently sensible overcoat.
They sit, both silent, as
- outside the foggy bus windows -
winter has one last chew on
time's bony old carcass.
She has a slight stoop which
she's doing her best to hide, and his
shaking hands make his liver spots blur.
They stand - the bus stopping at their
mutual destination - shuffling sideways
into the aisle, and something
unexpected
happens.
The bus jolts suddenly forwards,
then lurches to a startled halt,
and she falls backwards
into his arms
and he
catches her.
For a second,
strange gravities assume control.
There's a moment,
governed by different laws of
physics and chemistry
and half-forgotten, half-remembered biology.
She flushes, infused with something
warm and thirst-whettingly girlish, and he
surges with a newfound potency,
standing taller, the woman he's supporting
somehow lessening the burden of his age.
Her spine straightens, and
she laughs.  His face, smiling, youthens.
His hands hold her unstooped shoulders and
don't tremble.
Sun breaks through cloud outside the window.
They remember it's spring out there somewhere.

It was almost spring here,
the purple light snuck in
cutting the overcast sky
and the venetian blinds.

The last snow lay out in the yard
slowly melting there
like something sad
but also something beautiful.

My kitten crawled up under my arm,
she lay her little head in my lap,
stretching out her paws
and yawning the way cats often do.

Soon it will be dark
but for now I live in the twilight
almost spring, almost night,
almost alive and almost dead.