The windowsill frames
each passing morning
It speaks in a language
only stillness hears its say
Anchored to the wooden studs
of fortress walls
that bind solitude,
enduring all that
autumn's curtain call unveils

Distant towering evergreens
look back with taller eyes  
than yesteryear
As these timeworn eyes
look beyond
and wonder why
   they've not grown of age —

Time passes away
so quickly
while waiting
for season's change —
and I, wistfully dreaming
how the trees bear
the weight of the sky

Fog lays below
the fir boughs,
blanketing the drowsy
near valley fields
Where deep roots repose
in the clay of truth
that swaddles all
abiding mother earth
   carves in stone —

A monument
to all forbearance,
just a mortal human
could never hold

Pensively envious
how long they hold
their eminence,
patiently suspended beneath
the nimbus rafters stay;
remaining transfixed
without a ray of sunlight
— searchingly leaning  
into each fleeting  moment
of unclouded sight


harlon rivers