I fear these goodbyes
for when I return
time will have passed
and I don’t expect
You to wait

but how I wish
I didn’t have to wait
to come back

I must leave
and I know
You don’t understand
why
but I must

I am in
a season
of waiting

I see signs of high rock
and yet I still climb
in a blind fear
mislabelled Bravery

The current is fast underway
faster than the rabbit beating its warning in my chest
I know the jump
I know the jump like I know myself
but
Still, I am unable to take the chance

that the trees aren't laughing but cheering
that you won't get in the way when I take the plunge

traffic backup,
    roadwork signs.
drive down road,
    little houses
treed yards.
    brown leaves,
first sign of fall.
    kids about to go back to
school\parents
    return to work. rolling
on the seconds go,
    ticking by faster
each year so it
    seems.

cars piled up,
     to slow, won't go.
tiny dancers in the
     wind blow on to car
windows,
     another sign of coming
Harvest Season.
     people resist the clear
trademarks
     enjoying the fall,
but resenting the
     winter.

I can't understand
     New England birds,
you're housed in
     cocoons like caterpillars
that guard against the
     elements,
not freezer coldness
     that animals call home.
I'm not sure the memo
     reached you,
but this isn't the
     South.

trees like snakes,
     shed their
rainbow skins, as
    "Old Man Winter"
kicks in. the sound of
      leaves crunching, cold
on the floor under foot.
     Autumn's death has
no memorial,
     birds flying South
a eulogy.

I carry a vial of ashes
As a pendant over my heart
Sometimes, the glass breaks
And it smears all over my art
Thus, I force myself to remember
The hatred turned into a lamentable ember

The palms of my hands ache
And I kneel in fragments of glass
Of my own creation
I fumble with the ashes scattered
I grab at it and the soil
Which all slips through my fingertips

I am a damnable, hateful person
And I carry a requiem note
Fraught with envy in my voice
I cannot see where I shall go
I have no light upon my path
But I can see from whence I came

A placid path
That has kept me safe
From the thorns and bramble of life
But alas, now I know grief
And pity is my closest companion
In the discrete absence of those
Whom I could call a true friend

However, though I know
This path, yellow brick,
I do not know where it leads
But I cannot move on
There is glass and ash on my path
And it all comes into darkness,
Like thread comes through a needle

I cry out
Again and again
My hands bleed
As I scrabble at the ground
And I know it punishment
For keeping the ashes of hatred
Rather than the petals of love
Or, perhaps, the tears of sorrow

There are a good many things
I could have chosen to keep
In the vile vial
I wear as a pendant to distort
My dear and precious heart,
So foolish and jealous

But, unfortunately,
It is ash in my heart
Ash in my head
And, finally, ash on my path
Sullying the joyful, sunshine yellow path
That leads me, the thread, the through the needle
Should I finally rise to my feet and the occasion
And choose to tread on broken glass
And search my surroundings
For something else to keep in my tender vile

This isn't him,
This can't be the face he's left here,
This isn't the face he's used to seeing,
Solidified in the mirror.
It can't be the current one,
Or even close,
It's not at all how he recalls from the ponds he's known.
Not the one admired,
On crystal clear days,
Or the one sang with,
Through some humming nights.
Maybe his memory is just fogged up,
Maybe this reflection is just blurry from the showers,
They'd have burned others skin.
Still this can't be the face.
Not with the potholes for eyes,
Waning moons for lips,
And cliches for brains.
Or maybe things,
Maybe they do just change,
Maybe sometimes somethings sink in the earthquakes,
And are never swam in again.
Maybe sometimes there's no hope for reversal, redemption,
Or some rectifying light to right what's left,
Only hope in surviving the new.
I guess that's all there ever was.
If only he had it sooner,
He would have thrived in the old world,
Found melodies in the days and more mirror-less memories for the nights.
Only then could things be better off,
Different.