This artwork of distance
Hand painted slowly
Abstract and weaving
Dark colors of grieving.
I was layering in loneliness
Midnight and fear
Chaotic brushstrokes
Angular but clear.
I used a toothbrush for splatter
And aged worry to your face
Covered the moon with dark ochre
Formed an illusion of space.
I placed you running through a meadow
Toward a vanishing point in the sky,
But I woke up and called out for you
When I couldn't see your eyes.

I tore a page out of a Time Magazine from 1938
To help me write a poem about discovery and loss
About an internal war over what I should have done
So long ago.
There was nothing I could do.
Now I look at the worn page -
Ephemera of what could have been
And place it back in my journal
Like a pressed leaf
Preserved away waiting
To be discovered.

Awakened 3 A.M.
By distant car tires gripping a wet road.
Like rainfall the sound of a memory returns
To when life was magnified
As the early morning breathed
Wonder through my window.

Lying under the same cool sheets
Used earlier for buildings and city streets
I drifted between two
Breathing Giants,
Moving mountains sleeping
Seconds before the sudden
Rattle of a country song
And weather report.

Outside the car tires
Take form and become a
Voice - a distant lullaby.

I made my bed
From the mud of the mire
Covered it with bramble
Thick brush and harsh brier.

I became alien and remote
Closed my eyes and my senses
Placed my head on the pillow
And dreamed of high fences.

I shrouded my body from
The cold with rough linen
Tore rocks from the ground
And fortified my prison.

Those whom I loved
Were thrown far away
And I cried at their leaving -
I begged them to stay.

And my window distorts the light
Of the sun reaching out to stir nature awake.
The bay laurel trees are trimmed and fragrant.
The house sparrow lays her three eggs
While the wind blows and spiders release their silk
And take flight.
The drone bees stage and wait for their queen to fly by over
The dust and pollen colored porch chairs we purchased last summer.

Where can I see the flowers bloom?
A person, soft light, a starry night
There is not time as a clock strikes noon.
Crazed in haste we turn in spite
For years turn and flowers burn as
I looked for God and cowered in fright.
Worldly things are the only concern.
We scream and try to say goodbye -
Only few decide to turn.
For flowers, cowards, all will die
Without love but with much thought.

For in these words please do not imply
A lack of faith and to say thereof
"Let this be for God above."

Not home as midnight
Approached on the dusty balcony
Stairs. I could not see past
The edge of the forest but
It was close and touched me.

My mind played with deceptive
Phantom lights.
How is it your leaving
Surprised me, of course, I
Died for you. I cried for you!

Only when the moon illuminates each step I fall
Can I see beyond my reach.  Father, you left
For reasons you keep to yourself and the family
Cries out for evil is real.

As the moon promptly peers through
The passing clouds healing begins deep
Within the brush and haze.