Whispered the word 'love'
sent it free into the universe
the universal 'love'
all around and within us
Whispered back 'Love'

A lost and thirsty wanderer
          sought oasis on a parched and dusty plain
                   where spectral mesas
                merged with pastel stratus clouds -
            quivering in the summer sun.

                    A slender blue ellipse emerged
                            along the horizon's edge,
                          taunting the traveler’s arid throat.

                    Recalling child-day afternoons.
                         splashing in the pond behind the barn,
                              his legs urged toward aquatic deliverance.

                                       But knowledge seized his boots.
                                   Wary of loving a delusion,
                               he chose instead to seek a road or farm
                           or chance upon a horse-backed rancher
                                tracking down an errant calf.

                                       Still he looked back to his phantom pond  –
                                             never to know if an oasis flowed
                                                   less than an hour’s walk away.


                               December, 2018

Am I to die with you still hating me
For something I never knew I did?
Has nothing I have done for you
In these last thirty-five heartbroken years
Earned me a tiny bit of your forgiveness?

I am old and sick and growing weak,
And life’s a struggle every day.
Your anger is a load almost too
Heavy for me to carry now,
But I can’t put it down because

My love for you has never wavered
And I nurture a small flame of hope
That some day you will realize
That I did the very best I could
With what I knew of parenting.

That I tried with all my heart to be
The television mom you longed for
And to master all the rules attached
That were impossible because
I couldn’t get past being who I am.

I so regret my imperfections
And the moments when I failed.
I’d give the last years of my life
To have a chance to try again
And maybe get it right this time.
          ljm

the iron bell called all the faithful in their finery
to come kneel in prayer, and sing their throats out
accompanied by the bellowed ***** pipes,
but to the outsider all seemed too unreal too nice
and far too smiley underneath all that finery
to be included in such hallowed ranks
and within those hallowed walls.

Casually you rise
take up residence
in my evening space
Casting light
to intoxicating depths
Soaring, I swim
in your sea of rain
Drenched, I hide
beneath your shine
Exposed,
rolling in your
trenches, I've memorized
every groove of your pale face

Slowly, I'm spinning
beneath the skies,
in search of us

Lost in you Imbrium,
look down into my window
I will be there every night...
waiting....

in the wisps of mist
stroking the curves
of a sleeping mountain
I hear a call

husky tones
siphoned off
by a cold wind
mocking

I see you still
as a filtered moon
drifts over my lashes
quivering

like the scent of you
as we dance
skin to skin
close

Lights too bright,
  End the night.

No more stars,
  No more planets,

No more dreams of
  Lands and creatures
    
Far far away,
  Far light years away.