There's red on Nandina,
berries blazing among
morning's mist

Years ago you were
a sprig, shiny green
hiding below the white spruce

Once,  nearly
pulled along with other
less worthy underbrush

Like the car that braked on
time, like the strike of lightening
that missed the cabin

Survival can show
bright, radiant
veil of flaws

Gone, times of trial
evasions of destruction
hidden behind the glare

I sit in a cramped pose
filter out  laughter in the hall
notice my breath flowing
in, out….
pain in my ankles
aches up my legs
**** cheeks basking
like turtles on a rock
still, in waiting, infrequent
head peaks out of my shell
as I anticipate
revelations in my bones
and insights which will cast aside
fears of imaginary illness
fade real disasters
hanging from my ceiling
into fantasies  
destined to
scare the sweat out of me
and make me whole.

Fooled by love,
rather fooled by life
a maze to walk
seldom traversed
without the inevitable blank wall
tormenting befuddled mind.

Love is real.

Life is a hazy non-reality.

Trust the heart

for melodious, rhythmic beats

signal that 
life is now
not some distant goal.

Love is around,
within awareness

find it

among sky, among trees

within *****, within 
wombs. 


Will you be worthy of love?
Rather will love be worthy of you?

Autumn slips

across the Dakota plain

rolling southeastward

like a slinky shadow.
Coming and going
in September

around State Fair time.

Dakota autumn seems 
shorter
than the fair itself.
Tree leaves hastily turn shades

and drop in a matter of days.

Summer and winter overlap

like two hands clasped together.
Fingers of winter
poke into autumn’s space.

Summer's digits
carry the name, Indian Summer

rather than proudly wearing 

the banner of a warm autumn day.
School children don heavier jackets

and crack thin ice on puddles
from the fall’s first frosts.
Farmers rush to finish
corn and bean harvests

in the midst of 
early October snow.

In Dakota, fall ends early.

Standing before her
on one foot,
as though surveying
a Renoir,
he is overwhelmed by splashes
of red from her nails,
her lips.
Shifting to level
he is entranced
by her blue, twinkling eyes,

His gaze is one of awe.
Uncritical he hears
her hair sweep
across her shoulder,
as rustling wind blown
across West Texas
fields of barley.

Her words
cool his bare toes
as though dipped in
Box Elder creek’ s flow through
rocks, eddies and fallen limbs.

Her moves
have the grace of cirrus skies,
he thinks
this is my picnic spot,
my settling spot
fit to build a cabin.

Then he knows,
love is here.

Falling leaves confused
With a darting hummingbird,
Time to change my clocks

Flickering blast forth
"It is broken.  It needs fixing"
We know, we broke it