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A HUMAN IS CRYING

The dog is dreaming
under the piano

asleep across
its foot pedals.

The clock announces
the seconds

in a loud hear ye hear ye
town crier's voice.

A bumble bee is arguing
furiously with the glass

of a cracked
window pane.

Time is defeated.

A human is crying.

Time is different
for the clock, the bee and

the crying human.

Time ceases to exist
lost in his grief.

His brother is dead.

Somewhere in the journey
around the sun

he has left the planet.

Earth continues on
without him.

He sees his brother
everywhere.

Strangers
wear his face.

Walk with his gait.

He almost expects
to hear

his voice in the dark
at the turn of the stairs.

He sees him many times
in many mirrors.

Or in the back of a spoon.

His face trapped
in a cobweb.

It always appears
as if...as if

he has just left
the room and

will be back
any second now

but: he isn't. . .

The dog is still
asleep under the piano.

The clock has run
out of time.

The silence is terrifying.

The bee it seems is
dozing on the window ledge.

The human
is crying.

*

My brother's death stripped me of everything...the who I am...my name...my identity...I was reduced down to this human symbol...just like the dog...the this...the that...who as it happens is...crying. As if a computer was merely registering the things in the picture.
for
she, an unending gift of inspiration,
a thank you for learning me a new word
Hungry for the sharing

<>

Cloud-busting: Mare's tails -
"Horse tail clouds," also known as "mare's tails," are a type of cirrus cloud characterized by their thin, wispy, and streaky appearance, resembling the tail of a horse. These clouds are composed of ice crystals and form at high altitudes, typically between 5 and 10 miles above the ground. They are often associated with approaching weather changes,
particularly warm fronts, and  may signal
the possibility of rain or increased winds."

<>
With newly acquired knowledge,
Comes new responsibilities
No longer is a fleece flecked blue aureola sky
Just a harbinger of good tidings,
Its inner working require further investigation,
And a new concern must now,  by instigation
to be attended, by instantation

So it is.
With every column, differing opinion, advice, new knowing,
comes
Those **** burrs, that irritate but don't break the skin,
Concerning, demanding discerning, and unthinkable.
Now
Attention must be paid.
Ah,
Paid.

Perhaps trivial, perhaps not, but
The less the ignorance, the more the bliss?

We turn to each other,
And only to each other,
Whisper great fears of what yet to be,
Things so commonplace now,
As to be unthinkable!

Will our descendants ever know
A dry faucet?
Days when electricity is only available but for a few hours,
Toilets that are illegal to flush?
When when,

those
systems that with witch we pay so little heed,
we do not concern us now,
Routine, unseen, and someone else's responsibility,
Be luxuries in the future?

Can I with conscience clear see a most excellent daylight,
And not seek out, worry about, the wispy warnings of
Horse tail clouds?
Brilliance of a deep blue sky
Whipped about on high
Mare's tails in their latticed way
Spray across my sky.
Wind aloft and rising
In its wild mercurial fling
Driving cavalcades of galloping
White mares to offering....
A magnificence on high
In a quotative display,
Stampeding into vastness,
To illuminate my day.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ
Vastness on high
In a troposphere of sky
Delicately blazed
And so intricately phased.

This cavalcade of cirrus
With a slash of errant wind.....
Then, behold, with bravado,
To let the stampede begin.

A clash of hooves at gallop
Across a turquoise sky,
Joins the thunder of the passing,
With the scream of equine cry.

There's Mare's Tails in the Heavens,
In a symphony of song
And the Gods roar embellishment
At the righting of all wrong!

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ
Variations on a theme... for in tonight's clear blue sky, across the vastness of the grey Tasman sea,.....
The Mares Tails extend, hugely on high, heading our way, indicating the arrival of the harmony and celebration of our late Winter Solstice.
M.
In a few months, I would become a mother
myself. Drove to her home, eager to spend
the day with my own mother. Tried to ignore
the deepening crevices in her face, arthritic

knuckles that still pounded dough to make
dumplings for others. Late afternoon, we perched
upon her kitchen stools, sipped chrysanthemum tea.
Her voice was quiet as she recalled leaving her dear mother

decades ago, toddler on hip, for a new life overseas. An unspoken goodbye that shimmered like silk between them. Sorrow distorted her face, the words strangled in her throat: Lao Lao, your grandma, had shuffled from room to room, stunned into silence, the roar of this impending

distance already drowning out my pleas for her to somehow understand. I was leaving her, perhaps forever. Her fingers had trembled as she gifted me a parcel containing two homemade qipao dresses and three tiny outfits for you –
a toddler who would grow up without ever knowing her grandma.

I watched my mom as she sat in her kitchen, shoulders slumped.
I could see how this loss broke something in her.  Still, I made
no move to embrace her. Apathy bloomed in my folded arms
and shifty eyes, a feeble attempt to shield myself

from her palpable pain. Didn’t realize that I would be steeped in it
a mere few months later. Didn’t quite know then how to measure the distance between these wounded souls spinning out, unsure
of which direction was ‘home’ and unable to turn back.

In this tale of three mothers, I now see the steadfast thread
of Your handiwork stitching together burdened hearts
spanning seas, lands, the spaces between. It was Your grace
that carried us — and only with You, did we each learn surrender.
For so many reasons;
When the wow creativity
Of the young, new baby poets,

Bursts all over me,
Making me question
My egotistical perception,
Not a slap, but a belly laugh!
At the old fool, who once thought
Ever so secondary briefly, momentarily,
Unofficially, of his own esteemed self-worth,
Only to be reminded, deaf~dumb & blind~sided
By the fresh air, the aggravating sight of new insight
The delicious!delight  of reading the whole of all night
The explorations, the baby hallucinations, the trembling,
Insights of the explorers of the old, not re!newed, but, but.
Made anew, re~viewed with perspectives boldly unknown,
With crazy wisdom to expound, here, you! right here, right now,
I leave you and return to delight, taste, new extra languages, that
                                               I must
                                         learn not to speak
                                       but to peak, even to
                                     Cry, Laugh even Smile  
    
                              In all my new native tongues



Friday, July 18
5:39 AM,
2025
In the sunroom

Dictated in one fell swoop, not a moment to lose, dispatched while
Still laughing at myself...
In place of shadows
sunspots and creases
an embankment the gray of day seizes
      nailed to peril as a savior
      pushes out all traces in its labor

Dust and smoke
--the heartless void
above the faded ring of hope
      say a sated prayer
      for your fellow wayfarer

I'll shield your body between
the rays and surface
I'll be your dark clouded step
     when your own feet fail to purchase
     into the ground they sink
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