Words are like flowers
Ephemeral and beautiful
But cut short is their life
Once they leave the lips
It becomes the duty of action
To animate them into fruition
With persistence and grace
To keep them alive long after they’re spoken
And seasons change

From the falling of leaves
To the settling of snow
Trapped in winters grip
‘Til spring came to thaw
We’ve spoken many words
Fleeting and playful
With passion to match

Much like the flower
Flames can be evanescent
If left unattended
Yet in your absence
The light abounds

Summers soft warmth
Will hold us tight
As we hold each other
And brace for the chilled breeze of fall
To blow us back to October
To our first hellos
Without goodbye in sight

the sound of the ice cream van
evokes memories of summers
wearing shorts on hot tarmac
which you can almost smell
the heat coming up on your legs
a blast of warm air and fumes
as an engine fights the heat
to bring you your chosen treat
passed from an impossibly high
window already dripping onto
a hand that you pray won't drop it
coldness on the tongue anticipated
but still not ready for just how cold
something can be in contrast to
the baking sun on the back of your
neck, mission complete ritual satisfied
until you hear again the Pied Piper
like chimes of Greensleeves outside

In the tranquil ocean mirror,
you see you where the ripples clear.
A cool ribbon of breeze
slips across the sand
dancing with your hair
like a bead of flaxen flame.

In your eyes of winter mist,
a field aloft in clouded bliss.
Rainbow's end cascades upon
a grove of swaying palms
as the crackle of waves
whirls over the marigold plain.

Somewhere out in another universe,
I'm 12 years old
and I'm sitting on my bed listening to something through
a hopelessly tangled white headphone string,
flipping through the dog-eared pages
of my favorite book while everyone is sleeping.

The sticky, syrupy air of summer floats through an open window
and nothing bad has happened to me,
no scalding words or hot fingers
etching their prints into my skin.

I haven't menstruated or fallen in love or  yet shrunk myself down
or any of the things that made me a woman.

I am warm in my white tank top
and the blue satin shorts with the printed clouds
wondering about trips to the beach
and sticker placements on my new notebook from Borders.

And I hope she's always able to stay like this,
that she never knows of the kinds of stains
that won't wash out of her white tank top.

And that every once in a while,
I might just catch a second of her laughing
from the room next door.

There I glanced,
entwined within the cool warmth
of a summers dawn,
toward a swell of blazing teal
and its oceanic paragon.

A whirling spray of silver waves
caressed my face and washed my dreams.
I wandered along the grassy rim
with eyes beguiled and mind agleam.

A vision of morning grace
within the blur of misty lace.

Ocean winds drape your isle,
I can see you dreaming,
but when you wake
and find the world has gone
will you remember me
as I was upon the horizion?

Turquoise waves sweep the shore,
I can see you singing
and when you play
your magic instruments
will you remember those
who sculpted the mountains?

It all seems so familiar.
You have a place to return to
but you've never been there before.

Summer tryst to bygone days,
I can see you laughing.
So when you gaze
upon the vast water-scape
will you find a stretch of land
and make of it a home?

Gazing out your cerulean diamonds
past the rippled shore
toward the sunrise bursting on the horizon
and you swear you’ve never felt this before.

A wave-caressed *******,
where sea-winds lift the wailing gulls,
and you’re dancing to the calypso
flooded with ardor
and answering the call 
for voyage on the water.

Another day and the helm is turning.
In the midnight trance, your sails are drawn.
The crew say these clouds are blurring
your painted vessel of this summer's dawn.

The mast is towering in the salty air
and the sun is showering your seaward stare.

Hummingbird on a foxglove petal
sipping from a nectar pool.
Our watercolor jewel
flutters on a linen page
as turquoise mist and viridian waves
curl beneath an emerald spool.

Hummingbird on a hawthorn branch
waiting for a brush of breeze
from limpid seas
across the stony shore.
Springtime serenades crest the summer door
as sunlight is cradled by sugar trees.

Hummingbird on a pale-white zephyr
gliding toward a wooded grove.
Our watercolor cove
brimming with blue
as dandelions rise from filmy dew.
Hummingbird, in the summer shade,
continues to rove.

Sunday's somewhere in the teal dawn
wandering on a lukewarm breeze.
Monday pens weary travelogues
with fugal prose of frozen seas.

Tuesday holds a gilded halo
of sunlit cirrus atop the knoll.
Wednesday gathers ornate words
and begets infinity upon a scroll.

Pale gleams flutter
upon a lap of willowing streams
and in a dream, the sun melts
as the moon sets at the end of my bed.

Island marooned, mana consumed,
and with ancient runes, a song is stitched
as love is woven in the white of wool threads.

Thursday hums a quiet tune
and lilts over the azure morn.
Friday trods the afternoon
through blossom and thorn.

Saturday nestles in cool dusk;
a shroud of purple-painted skies.
We'll blot a scarlet streak of stars
and crown the night with your hazel eyes.

Shades of saffron over the Black Hills,
droplets of evening blot the pines,
a whirring zephyr bathes the grassland
as horizon crawls from your eyes.

Pasque adorns the endless plateaux,
while sunset colors the sky.
Bison wander in scarlet twilight
through an ocean of durum and rye.