Where there is a
dream, living in
settled glass,
(the kind you find in an
abbey
in an alley of
sinners & saints)
    where there is always a small
bird with her
"I trust you" wings in a
nest where she rests
assured

among chorales and
readings and phrases as
  inevitable as forget-me-nots-
where red meets blue
with the welding of
gold
and prayers are a
hatchlings
   lullaby

I've heard of people
praying
   for
everything,
but not even
    birds
      answering
       their
            cry.

I've never moved ink like this,
and like ink is
surprised by the
sudden shift,
           so am I
surprised by how
I've never been swayed like this
either

You'd think a poet-dancer-painter-joiedelavie-creator
would have felt the
  move of
everything and
  never missed a
cue or crossed-T
but

there are ways I'm finding
to push the pen that I
haven't tried
before
and
I am
being
moved as
well, in ways my
spindly bones did not know
that they could bend,
before

like growing the fruit at the
end of a
branch, I'm learning to
  balance
           the
          weight

Sometimes when I'm
running
and my knees are
bobbing in their
  straight and bend,
  and I'm follow
ing the
canal
   path-
     and my
little lungs have
started their quickened
rise and
fall-

there are white tailed
rabbits and
   small black
ducks- sometimes
straw-colored grasshoppers
frozen in
    fear-for-my-running-

and then there's
me  
       me.
questioning if I'm
                                 pushing
hard enough
      fast enough
           Am I
tough enough?
good enough?
Is this enough?

I don't want to hold
       back, but I can
only
breathe so
     hard.

The bows out stretched, rising
   , falling
and the clarinet is singing her song
so low-
where the violins
avoid in veiled
soprano
and the basses
in bulk
like to go-

When I close my eyes,
I'm on a path
   and I'm walking
    and Tchaikovsky's notes sound like
      words-
  the timpani sounds like the
beating wings,
the tilted flight,
  the colony of bats
    in aviation slur

when fate keeps on
      knocking
and it's finally
    autumn first-
I am in the
mezzanine,
   and my response to
your andante's
unrehearsed

And you are there,
under composer
charm,
your aura blazing
ochre
I've found that
   everywhere
that I'm
  with you,
             is an
Orchestra's October.

After this
    long
    summer where
the street lights stay
orange after
                nightfall

I'm going to keep telling
myself
if the sun looks like it
   never sets,
then
   the fall is never coming

Watching you fall
so hard
  when you leapt so high
    you were so
  inspired by the
hope for wings-

they say that you can build your
wings on the
way down,
but that's not always true
you gave it everything you had-
sacrificed, and gave it all
and because you believed
the dream
of building wings,
my heart had to break
      your
  fall.

These days,
when I'm feeling alone
   or finally excited, again
or have a thought to
  hear your
               voice,

I get the urge to pick up the phone
       and call you
for a
second, only a
passing
          moment,
as quick as the light of a match before
      I remember
you died, last
winter and I slept in the
hospital
for weeks

Instinct hasn't caught up to
   reality

     yet