Somewhere in Vermont
I see the sky
Stars scattered
like lighting bugs back home

Clouds drift,
Cold breeze,
Threatening rain

Shaped like an unfamiliar constellation
Headlamps shine
Some red, some blue, some yellow
Some bright, some dim

There's a presence here
Neither scary
Or threatening

Or even mysterious

People breathe,
A guitar sounds,
Pens scribble
Each in unity with the other

Somewhere in Vermont
People write
Separated by space
Their own thoughts
Spilling around them

Combining as one
Yet still
Individual

Brought together
By happenstance

They breathe together
as
One

When it is quiet, outside
only a light commercial
for pleasures of the big city
inside everything gray

the smell of the dog
just me
walking around
as if I'm not at home

but explore what
there is to see of the people
who live here: nothing
special, though there is

one tidy room
with an empty cupboard
and on the bedspread a cuddly toy
soft under my hand

then it grows still
in me, I am
not looking for anything, there's nothing
I'd wish to hope for

There's a sharp frosty switchback that never sees the sun in winter
  skies of blue. The frost heave cut-bank rocks tumble down to the
side of the road,  in the ice shard mottled ditch lay frozen stiff

Tall Sitka spruce marbled gray shadows mat the sparsely traveled
  corridor, paved with potholes, where the roads have no names
Sometimes listening quietly to the bare stillness, there are
  rhetorical questions heard in the silent reverie's say:

                        "Have you ever been afraid?"

The tree-line gaps above the jagged gray stone ravine, disappearing
  down the rugged mountain shade, falling into the pillow-top fog bank blanketing the canyon's murmurs below — headed towards the ocean

Crystalline spring waters gurgle up roadside — out of nowhere,
  where tired boots stand in reverent contemplation as it all sings out  harmoniously to the trees in the key of silence;   it was there
  in a gust of restless forbearance heard the frozen peacefulness  say:

                         "Have you ever felt alone?"

Gathering a deep breath of marbled gray shadows, silence bears
  a loud holler's scorn — echoing back and forth down canyon walls,
with the spirit of a voice a multitude strong,  evanescent
                             as winter's outgoing tide.


                      January 2019 — Jesse Stillwater

I’m often afraid
Of what I can’t always say
Not knowing is sure to make fear
Multiply upon itself until I cannot
Breathe and my heart races as if it
Can run away despite my body’s
Stillness
Frozen like a rabbit hides from
Slathering wolves
But my wolf is not so solid, its sharp
Teeth and ember eyes change into
Something with which I cannot
Reason
Maybe it is nothing I fear
Dark branches stretching out
Into night drenched
Solitude
Headlights my only solace from the
Dizzy roads and inky stars
What are they hiding, those
Branches
Perhaps wolves, perhaps nothing
I prefer the wolves

I awaken expecting the familiar dread
But instead I feel you wriggling in my belly
You guide me back to reality;
My heavy limbs resting on the sheets
The morning sun streaming in the window
No worry or fear; no decision to be made
Just the sun’s rays warming my body
And you gently moving,
Leaving this message of clarity and hope.

Maybe it was a dream, maybe not, I can't remember now
Walking homeward across town
Suddenly there came this fog in from the sea
It covered the harbour and the streets, enveloping everything
   so it seemed
A fog so thick...so dense, I'd never seen its like before
All you could see was the slow drip of car headlights
As they'd emerge from out of the street next to me
Eventually I had to stop, I couldn't go on, couldn't see anymore
It was like everything had just faded away until all that was left,
   all that was left there... was me
But then - suddenly! Looking up. There! Right above me
The huge spire of a Church, towering up,
Like it was coming out of the clouds
I was amazed... awestruck
"Surely this was it" I thought, "surely I'd found it
(That which had been lost... lost for so long)
The Church at the End of the World looking down on all
    Eternity",
Even now after all those years I still had a memory of you
You were there... right at the beginning, right at the start, you
   were there
Those nights when I slept as a little child
You used come to me, come to me in the quiet, in the still of
   the night
I used enter and roam your hallowed halls...look out on your
   golden city...with eyes wide with wonder
It all started to come back to me
I grew excited, so excited
Because I knew! I remembered! I recognised you still!
You were there, all there just like you had been all those years
   ago
And you were the same, the exact same, you hadn't changed in
   any way
I saw the old familiar road down to you open up before me
And then the Bridge across appear
And then entering through your Gates
My heart it leapt inside me and my eyes they were filled with
   tears
I'd found it...found you again
The Church at the End of the World.

I shared a moment with you today;
for once,
I was just
                     Present.
Not plagued with the what ifs,
The constant dialogue,
Bewitched was I
by nature’s percussion,
Dancing a melody outside,
I wrapped us in a blanket,
You calmed -
We both were still,
Our souls connected in a song:
A simple lullaby,
In your eyes sang the Universe,
It echoed back in mine,
An orchestra of consciousness
that I’ll treasure
for a while.