"Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn."
Slowly, leaning slightly, shuffling
Two together, down a gentle incline
Towards the lake. The shadows
Break the field, as autumn welcomes
Two of its own children to its midst.
Love: it grows and changes,
Leaving things behind it didn’t need
And focused on the future,
Emerging fresh from seasons past,
And reaching less for speed than for
Each other
See: the fall blends into winter,
Effortless, like floating clouds,
Just as we have aged, my darling:
Passing times of joy like
Floating clouds
See the birds, they know the reason:
Season must give way to season,
Still they sing, to celebrate their flight —
Our times of joy like
Birds in flight
You and I belong together,
Through all change in clime, or weather —
Floating clouds and singing birds,
Blended seasons past all words,
Winter stars, and golden fall days,
You and I together
Always
Between the after and the before.
After:
a dismissive day amid the young
random shouting at him out on the road
rolled eyes at him counting his change at the grocery store
people elbowing by him on the street
But before:
checking an answering machine that never has messages
a tv dinner heated up in an old convection oven
playing three hours of solitaire
flipping television channels at 3:00 am
What never dies is seen by none
As he, the aging aching one
Walks painfully to where she sleeps
To lay his rose
And silent
Weep
In spring, you feel the newness of it all.
Each feeling is a flower, fresh, unique;
Like love or loneliness, each one is pure,
And beauty of discovery hangs round
The edges of the garden path that leads
To who you want to be and where and how —
In spring, you feel the newness of it all.
Summer on the edge of madness
Broken in emergent song;
Love’s a shadow born of gladness.
Nights too short for days so long
Shades come down on pages turning,
Glances lead to bodies burning,
Tangled up in their intentions,
Loves and likes and cites and mentions —
Summer in the glowing garden,
Moments known of passing fire,
Ere the fall comes hearts to harden,
Towards the autumn of
Desire
In the cool of autumn, still
We stood and wondered how,
We’d found each other in
This savant maze
A capturing, a visioning,
A laughter, and a pause —
A hymn, but more of promise, than
Of praise
It came with resignation, and
It went without applause;
A family, a faction,
And a fight —
The autumn sun was fading, and
The days were growing dark,
And we were changing colors with
The night
With time, comes winter, with its chill,
And we must finally go inside for heat,
And memories of the spring,
When everything was fresh and new,
And summer,
When we felt how love could be,
When heat was running wild,
Autumn,
When we stood out in the cool,
The evening cool, and watched
The twilight gather with
Its purple whispers
Of a looming time;
A time we’ve only known
As parable
With age, comes winter, with its rime,
And frozen becomes attitude, and time,
There is a slower pace,
And giving up of contest, game, and race;
But character is fate,
And all we leave’s too early, or too late,
The winter has it’s way
There is only the challenge of each day
And dripping memories,
That melt like icicles from trees,
And spring starts for another heart somewhere:
Another heart and life
Somewhere
I know a place of green and blue
With aging fence and turning breeze,
Where once I ran when life was new,
And I was at my ease —
It is now as it ever was.
My feet can feel the downy grass;
I see, from off the riverside
Some bluebirds as they pass —
And memory, that liar’s torch,
Finds confirmation in the fact
Of all that was and is, without
Commotion to distract
For only in the emptiness
Of what is felt when mind is stilled
Could I know what has gone amiss
With what my heart’s been filled —
I know a place of open field
Where I am young again, in mind,
And where there still is space to run,
Or even leave some things
Behind
the settled peace of harbor time,
a walk upon the windy docks,
and hands that intertwined without
a thought of anything —
you tangled were in many dreams,
the settled peace of harbor time;
somewhere, lost in the silence, i
don’t let creep in my life —
the years have come, like hammer blows,
and noise drowns out the memory;
the settled peace of harbor time
that laps at consciousness
for now i’m aging, old and gray,
and safe within a southern clime –
with sound, a wall my thoughts to rein —
from settled peace
and harbor time
A true story.
her thread came loose —
i was but a boy
maybe eight years old
and she
and she kept repeating herself —
she could not remember
what she’d just told us
and it frightened me
like i’d landed in a madhouse —
not my grandmother’s
new condo
where we came to visit
my mother talked to me in the car —
what’s wrong with grandma?
She is going through [what was then usually called] senility
She loses her sense of where she is, and
Time goes back and forth
In her head
but why?
It’s something that sometimes happens…
‘Senility’ is God’s way of reminding us that…
That the mind and the soul
Are not the same thing
will she get better?
No, son, she won’t.
Her mind will gradually unravel
Until she’s ready
ready for what?
To be free
