Children’s voices crying out
and laughing loud and clear
Like an orchestra of sound
for everyone to hear

The bass starts first, parental leave
gives go ahead to play
The marching beat as kids go forth
and out into the day

A trumpet hail for company
is raised from door to door
The flute returns, the oboe too
accompanied by more

The fun begins on strings and swings
go back and forth with speed
All cares and woes are flung away
percussion takes the lead

A drumroll raises up the stakes
a dangerous new move
Chromatic scales, gymnastic fails
the cymbal’s sharp reprove

The roundabout reveals the chorus
repeating the refrain
The highs, the lows and all between
All voices sing again

The seesaw conversation starts
bassoons begin up high
The oboes and an English horn
ascend into the sky

A far away note penetrates
the happy symphony
A lone voice trills with increased speed
and calls out ‘Time for Tea’

As kids go home the conductor
Bows and takes his leave
The park is left in quietness
notes floating in the breeze

Today I died on the freeway
by the overpass on the 427

a hot and relentless August rain
made it too dark to be five thirty

I walked home slowly from work
as you do when you're tired

oh yes, I was sad too
but we all are

it's easy to be sad
when it rains in August

when I reached the overpass
in the middle I leaned over

my hair passed my eyes
and droplets fell

down, down

I thought about it
twenty feet into traffic

the guardrail is never as useful
as a sweet and good-hearted hug

so then I thought better of it
and put my headphones in

I died on the freeway
then got up and kept walking.

It never mattered much that you weren't mind to hold
I have a bad habit of waiting for people to change their minds
and hoping I'll fall back into the arms of someone who was never meant to stay
It's always more the idea of someone than it is the person standing in front of me
so I spend my mornings listening to music that reminds me of you
pretending to know the boy I only wanted you to be

The first time I saw you it was in math class.
I didn't notice anything about you at first I just memorized the back of how your head was.
After all, I had an hour to ****.
The second time I saw you were in English class.
You sat next to me but not by choice.
But I was happy about it.
It took me about four to five weeks to talk to you,
and I wasn't even the one to speak first.
You introduced yourself and then we worked together on an assignment.
It's been two weeks and I haven't said another word and I probably won't out of random.
My anxiety swallows me whole
and I'm sorry I can't even say hello.
But I have had time to notice you.
And let me just say
I'm in love with your taste in music
I'm in love with the way you hold your books
thinking that if you change the sound of your voice when the diagonal changes,
or if you struggle reading words you've never seen before and sit there for a few seconds trying to piece together what they mean.
I love how you can play the mandolin, you should show me sometime.
As I think about these things I also pick up how you would never even think of me.
I mean really,
you probably want some girl that's outgoing and can strum a guitar solo at midnight with you.
You probably want someone with long hair you can intertwine your fingers in,
or someone you can spend an afternoon together after church with.
I can't move mountains
and I can't even speak without looking like a fool,
but even if nothing will ever happen
It would be just as quite exciting being friends with you.
We could trade books and make each other mixtapes.
It hasn't even been a month yet and I'm already writing mediocre poetry about you.
I'm sorry about that by the way.
I'm not asking for a relationship but a friendship with someone like you would feel just the same.

I Climbed a mountain, 
I Stood by the clif,
My cloth fell off of me without hesitation,
The world was under my feet and for a moment there,  I was it's goddess
I Waited for the breeze to reach me,
And raised my hands over my head
Stretching them as if giving the universe a hug
Breathing everything in
I Felt my soul excite
I Closed my eyes and sensed with all my other organs
'Don't fear the wind,' something in me said.
'Let it push you to the edge,  to the very edge'
My favorite music was playing in my head and I screamed it out my lips. 
"I got my red dress on tonight
Dancing in the dark, in the pale moonlight
Done my hair up real big, beauty queen style
High heels off, I'm feelin' alive"
And I felt alive
My heart exploded
my head contemplated the possibility of Lana doing the same thing as she wrote this song,
And I loved her for it.
It really was a beautiful summer time sadness.

Eyes closed,
Fillings a'quivering,
As the dull background roar of the wind tearing by.

Eddie Vedder belting out the works of Etwistle, Townsend, Daltrey, Jones, and Moon.
Smoke exiting the windows as both my Father and I smoke.

Both laughing at the schadenfreude,
Seeing a traffic jam forming the other way,
Stretching out for 8 miles ahead,
With miles of more traffic to soon add on.

It's a shared humor at old jokes,
Shared a thousand times,
Like when we went hunting all those years ago.

I suppose it is nearing the time,
When my own path veers me so far away,
From the once small town I had grown,
Before I am to travel west,
In search of fufilling my purpose,
In service of the community as a whole.

The sun slowly setting,
As we reach the outskirts of Cincinnati,
The sky blue to flaring orange,
Lone clouds like embers being flung off the sun.

I hear a song which colors Autumn.
It sings Creation's symphony,
Of days long past, or still to be,
Of what the Earth is to become.

It moves the air and paints the skies.
The waves crash with crescendos,
And with its trumpets, wind does blow.
The cellos play.  The eagle flies.

With violins the flowers bloom.
With piccolos the sparrow calls.
Like cotton snow, the music falls.
The drums begin. The mountains loom.

And when it seems the song will end,
In Winter's white and icy chill,
When all the world is calm and still,
The trumpets will begin again.