They are both crowded, my calamity and your selfishness.
Our birds left, and we are still whistling for the sake of patching this failure.
That colorful portrait you etched on our hallway is pondering integrity, still wandering into this massive mess.
Our woods are filled with broken musical boxes, as we are still there, sensing their tenderness, drowning in our psychosis’s final chapters.

And So the Day Begins (Bring Them Home)

~ With love for T.R. & S.R., my friends ~

<>

Their spirits, sensed, well kept,
in a sudden breeze, a sudden sneeze,
at the precise exacting, millisecond,
when skin, mind intersect, coinciding,
Mine, Theirs, and wet eyes and
smile traces arrive unbidden but both
together, always simultaneous and I know,
full hearted, full throated gasp grasping,
my soul and hands, touching, clasping,
in the kitchen odors, morning coffee,
early daylight across my face sweeping,
on the tongue, their taste on mine,
and I am present in this moment
as they are too, with me forever if
but just for a heartbeat, maybe two,
stilled yet, my heart trembles as it fuses
with Them and Everyone of Us is renewed,
and so the day begins,
Oh Our Children!
remembering, a point on our journey,
our always unbroken continuum.


<>

7:17AM
July 22
Two Thousand and Twenty Three
but one more day until…

<6:36 AM>


~for Joanne Louise Veronika~

patches of light, snatches of sleep,
cumulative tallies of every 24 hour arrhythmia,
detect heart alarms ringing, watch warnings screeching beeping

who cares!

new commitment, self imposed!

greet the early ones with sooth and java,
a combination, “all across the nation,”
ease them in from sleeply lyrical dreams,
to a clear sky, renew anew, bay waters
running new tide fast, tiny tendrils of water points,
etch-a-sketch paths to a calm souls restoration

the smoke haze bad dream departed,
sun rays warmth for the invisible innards,
waves look like the EKG of human at peace,
resting heart rate steady and rhythmically sweet

and I laugh at myself, preposterous!
this is my secret path to restoration,
please laugh at me, join the raucous joy
of not-taking-yourself too seriously,
meaning of a new light, fresh waters,
of an old friend, the same diurnal perspective,
a new alphabet that spells but a singular duality,
a two-word~poem of
meditative perfection:

calm sheltering