The cloudless day is richer at its close;
A golden glory settles on the lea;
Soft, stealing shadows hint of cool repose
To mellowing landscape, and to calming sea.

And in that nobler, gentler, lovelier light,
The soul to sweeter, loftier bliss inclines;
Freed form the noonday glare, the favour'd sight
Increasing grace in earth and sky divines.

But ere the purest radiance crowns the green,
Or fairest lustre fills th' expectant grove,
The twilight thickens, and the fleeting scene
Leaves but a hallow'd memory of love!

i have a face cut from ice
a heart pierced in a thousand places
so to remember
always the same voice
the same gestures
and my laughter
heavy
as a wall
between you and me

the ones who are most alive
seem the most still

behind the milky way
a shadow dances

our gaze climbs toward the stars

in a wine glass
sleeves of a sleeveless dress
knotted
around its stem
and a bull’s head sleeping, breathless
tangled
in the scent of pearl and warm flesh
standing on a drumbeat
balanced
by a prism’s deceptive stammer

you swept the ashes of winter
lit red and ****
drawn naked with smoke
and coal
still glowing
in the shadow of paper flowers
pressed to walls of plaster
and stone

whiter upon the flowing, her sounds
rested in morning coffee and echoed
in wildflower honey. i remembered her in
halcyon hues: she
folded down; i crossed and uncrossed;
she smiled at my clumsy ramblings and
i watched the lingering, icy
windshield.

what about the poems that try to encapsulate the happy feelings?
the immediates, the too instantaneous to write languidly?

there are emotions that strike you like lightning
***** you like a pin
tickle you like a feather

the emotions that slap you across the face and ignite as quickly as a match, but then are extinguished just as fast. and i guess writing about the small stream of quickly cooling smoke isn't enough.

everyone writes about the depths and the caverns of sadness and sorrow, guilt and regret.
perhaps it's easier to notice the details of an emotion that rips through you much slower.

but the sharpness and the searing of giddiness, surprise, and shock flash through you in a blinding instance, white-hot and cauterizing.
we should write about those more, i think.