Wood dissolves into nothing
A mountain of ash
Grey wind tomorrow
Heat simmers in the air, shivering
Gather round
Flames flicker
Reaching out for ripe branches
Trees bow at the flames

please know that I love you more than the stars, the sun, and the skies could hold.

but I don't know how to fix something without damaging it the process.

you are fragile, and my hands have unintentionally fractured you countless times. I know this, even though you've never explicitly told me.

I dance on eggshells around you: I am atlas, pirouetting across an empire of thin ice, just so I don't mar you with my words.

swallowing conversations and feelings is a talent we both possess. to spare the pain of the other, we dampen the truth. we drink the fires of resentment and leave them to ferment.

I cannot fix this without potentially damaging it further.

I'm a storm with skin. my collateral damage knows no bounds, spares no mercy. you know this. but hear me, and heed me closely.

I don't paint you as the villain. you aren't the martyr. we are equally responsible for this damage and decay. the rot of something once beautiful.

yet I cannot fix something without causing further damage.

we are a two way street. growth of beauty cannot flourish in stagnation.

please, do not test the limits of my volatility. I cannot mend the tatters of thirteen years with a single spool of thread.

I refuse to swallow fermented resentment. I walk on eggshells carrying mountains for you no more.

this tapestry will end in one of two ways: opulent splendor, or devoured by living flames.

I cannot fix something without destroying it in the process.

Drifting back to the ocean
like it never even happened
unraveled dreams washed clean
crystalline renaissance bestowed    
by wind mountain spring waters
rising from the heart
of mother earth

A remnant light glows deeply
of one love's untamed wonders
an unfastened feather glides abandoned
rushing waters floating
alighting pilgrim blissfully sails on
stranded without wings
a fallen wild feather free as bird
wanting a place to be let free

Sun in the summer air
wind in buoyant feathered hair
softly dancing upon
wild river restless ripples
to feel the love of holding on
adrift asunder whence it touched on
destiny's far-reaching
journey yonder
holding onto flowing rivers
rolling towards the sea

The incoming tidal waters blossom
surge to greet wind river's gentle saunter
converging slackening passage
salt on feral feathered fragments
arousing currents babbling swirl
imbibed by the impassioned sea

Wild rivers' born intentions
a different kind of drifting passage
to kiss the distant horizon
where the sown sunlight settles
submerged in shoreless ocean waters
    to be free all at sea at last


someone you used to know  2017

(a travelogue)

He stared down through
the unbroken silence
lapping the shoreline
Water skippers dart around
the rocks and windfall driftwood
settled juxtaposed in cattail reeds
and emerging broadleaf sprouts

A petrified heartwood timber
lie fallow waiting bare barked,
hushed like a pining lover’s
     timeworn love seat,
     rubbed smooth as
     the crystalline waters
     of  half-moon lake

Lingering for a while  ―  
like a hidden stalker,
a perched wildcat waiting
for the full moon’s  
swooning spell to saturate
the thickening dusk quietude;
     arousing the urgent
     call of the wild —
exhaled from the held breath
of the wilderness nocturne
    on half-moon lake

The stillness was scattered
with the soft downy hairs
of the sleeping cattails,  and
the newly shed catkins
a spring gust bestrewed
from a tall resin birch tree
nigh the Sitka willows

     He  sat  quietly ...
     time out of mind ―

tossing his eyes up into the sky;
taking the time to read the stars ―
catching  them  each  again
as they fell into his gentle hands,
to show him who he was

Seeing their sparkly tracers  
trail-out above the cattails,
     from a distance
they resembled falling stars
unable to perceive their own renaissance ―
plashing lightly upon the still-water
     on half-moon lake

A lone shadow glides stealthily
near mid-tarn,.. swimming  
enchantingly with the grace
     of a blackswan
Appearing to glance shoreward
at the glowing low stars
rise and fall, as his eyes
twinkled skyward over
     the moonlit lagoon ―
heavenward of its moonlit ballet;
the lone sleek dark shadow
     slipping through
     a faint circular ripple
stirring the smooth as glass waters ―  
disappearing like a fleeting moment
     waning deep aneath
     a subtle silent wake.

When all the clear lines blurred,
he knew it had been so long ...

     but hearken !
… an interceding
     long drawn out wail  
     echoed  a feral ache
     across the stillness,
     breaking the silence ―

as the shadow reappeared;
     his tears surrendered
to the undulating call of the wild;
he felt the spirit of the sole Loon,
     as black and white
     as the moonlit night,
stir deeply in his wanting heart ―
     lay bare the silence
in lengthy yodeled psalms
to the god of the moon

Diving down deep yet again,
keeping the light he’d been given,
vanishing into the lifespring
sanctuary of half-moon lake


harlon rivers ... May 2018
travelogue: 4 of some more

I want my love for myself
To overflow
And I want my overflow of love
To seep over onto you
But for now
My cup is empty
And maybe you can sense
That I have nothing to offer you

She supposed it was more than just rain.
It was a touch, light and rough upon the skin.
A harsh tap tap that seemed to echo through the world.
Eventually, it took over as she knew it would.
It felt cool, running down her soul
Not that she wanted the cracks cleaned out.
But the rain was insistent, formidable, and crushing.
It was, after all, more than just rain.

A swan swims through
the river of journey
A journey of teaching
For its cygnets
And their wings
Ripples giving the river some drop of depth

You take pictures of books you'll never read
write words you'll never truly know
and speak ideas taken from people that did.

But it's so common
and you're not the only one doing it
it's a whole spectrum of people
creating nothing
but consuming everything.

They may be just words,
but those words belong to someone
and without the person
they act without purpose--
repeatable, but with no meaning.

So few take what they have
to mold reality into new creations
that eventually the consuming will be consumed.
Leaving only an echo of what used to be
the cacophony of life--
it will become a mass of sounds
unrecognizable to the words we used to know.