I reminisce and bring you life
you come alive
and bring me death!

I am dirtied by the rain,
Awash with the remnants
Remains of the cleansed.
Scour each pore to take it in
Red, blistering, fever-pitched
I can still hear the harmonies
Tethered together, unified
All in a circle -
conflagrate and dance in a sea of flame.

Poetry is both lighthouse and harbor.
It does not force the journey, nor does it
fill the void of what is unresolved
It stands in its own gravity, unmoving;

      Offering only a silent invitation:
      Will you Unfold?

There is a craving that walks the shorelines of poetry,
a widow’s walk of those who have not yet learned
how to participate in what they long for.

They circle the docks,
watching the ships come and go,
watching the light shift across the waves,
watching for something that will draw them
back home.

Some mistake the lighthouse for the flame
and rush toward it as if to be consumed,
as if breaking open is the same as being made whole.
But the call is not to burn.

The call is to move toward what moves toward you,

   to become ready for  the return
   rather than wither within the waiting.

A moth drawn only to light
will die before it ever understands
what it was meant to become.
But a moth that finds its way to the cocoon
will emerge with wings strong enough
to meet the wind.

This is the choice—
to remain circling, craving, watching
or to disappear into the transformation
that will allow you to stand whole
when the vessel returns.

For he is both the lighthouse and the emerging vessel,
both the safe harbor and the dock,
where the journey finally ends.
And she, in waiting, is not idle..

She does not chase passing figures,
nor fill the silence with lesser pursuits.
She does not betray the longing
with distraction.

She deepens.

She prepares to meet the one
who braved the waves to return.

And when at last the ship appears,
bathed in the light of its own voyage,
she will not meet him as she was—

   .. but as she has Become.

Temper, temper
Don’t lose your cool
The freon isn’t cheap
The lines crossed aren’t invisible
Dare you to ignore the snake rattle,
It’ll strike and you’ll see
That toxin inside killing you
Has twice bitten you.

For ages as your aegis
Ageless as years fly by,
Boundless beauty,
It never left you
Even as the golden sun
Fills the cracks of your wrinkles,
Steadfast into the morrow
I will love you, Endlessly.

Can’t let them see,
If they knew, they’d want a slice
But happy creeps upon flushed cheeks
As a smile creeps and a chuckle sneaks
Out of the ordinary, oh well
No questions to ask, just time to bask
In the warm jets of the sun
Riding like a wave through the zephyrs
Collecting as one in singularity
The me of now and then and when come together
Tethered in song as we sing,
Oh so it goes, onto whatever tomorrow brings.

Still, unburdened by the silence
Mindful of my equanimity
Beneath the umbrageous canopies -
Where Sylvan shapes form from splitting rays -
Swayed in nature’s praxinoscope.