The Spiral Bridge

now i see batman in the sky: 
the truth, a thing of mind, and eye, 
wraps all around this thing called time 
and leads me to a cooler clime, 

where once was stronger hope (and less) --  
the brave one, full with fecklessness, 
who climbed the spiral bridge to find 
that peace is but a piece of mind -- 

but you, my friend, you know things small: 
that life, while crazy after all, 
is sweet and low and sharp and high, 
and why we're half-parts earth 

and sky

The One That Wasn’t

She traveled the low, and dreamed of the peaks. 
Searching always her tribe, finding only their cliques,
She began to think, maybe, the problem was her:
For solutions just were not as advertised.

In the heat of the fall, in the cold of the spring,
She banked nothing and all on almost everything,
Was she neurodivergent, or just immature?
For the world seemed a little surprised

To find her as she was, or perhaps, as she wasn't:
Our do's and our will's do not fit one who doesn't --
And the moon still looks lonely to she-the-unsure,
The allure of just what wasn't

Prized

Only So Many

"How much time do we have left?" 
The young boy asks, his parents shrug --
"Just enjoy the time while you can,"
His mom says,
While his dad looks on with a camera.

Sea touches sand like breath in lungs,
Clouds form their shapes, these whales, these ships --
Time flows and washes all away,
The mind will lurch and reach and slip.

We've traveled here, my love and I,
For she's now sick, and we don't know
How bad is it is, or how it ends:
The waters crash and ebb and flow

And I still don't know how much time
There is or can be, nor will I;
Awake I am, out on this shore,
While she is sleeping in, nearby,

Only so many days like this --
Only so many hours, smiles --
As I, like my father's camera try
To capture wind, and love,

And miles

“Nor”

Maybe I'm not a spectacle. 
There's nothing here that is amazing, or astounding: 
I am not the best or brightest, 
Neither the strongest, the fastest, nor best to look at.  

Maybe this is not a historically significant place -- 
Nor a place of current interest or intrigue -- 
Not just the right thing 
At just the right time. 

In a world and an age full of grabbing, 
Whether of attention, or hair, or opportunity, or money, 
I am a being of releasing: 
Of letting go, of setting free. 

None may stop to view such a lack of drama, 
Indeed, I scarcely pay it much mind, myself -- 
Maybe I'm neither all I think I am, 
Nor as little as I fear I've done. 

Maybe I'm not a spectacle, 
But I can honestly be what I genuinely am: 
Used, homely, full of purpose, faulty of execution, 
Closer to the dust than to the cradle. 

For I am neither angel nor demon: 
A digital bard from an age of paper coupons, 
A song no one listens to anymore 
Although there are forty-five hundred versions available. 

There is a genuine you of sinew and heartbeat, 
There is an actual me of skin and breath, 
But without the right dash of cavalcade, 
Do we qualify for real existence?

 

A March Quartet (IV)

DEATH will have its night; Life will have its day. 
 This is the world we're born into, this is the mortal way,
 
AS FLOWERS feel the sun despite the vast all-over cold -- 
 We're born to live, to learn, to feel, and maybe, to get old, 

WHEN WE must put our petals down, and give in to the earth;
 For death will have its night, and day will have its birth.

A March Quartet (III)

THERE'S ONE DAY cold, the next day warm, 
 The Spring, capricious in its whim; 
  The child runs and plays in snow, 
   Then sees a next when all will swim
   In streams and pools of sunny March,
  Beside green fields of Summer-soon:
 There's one day white, the next day green; 
It's all a ludicrous cartoon.

THE FIELD, it beckons to the young, 
 And to the old, the in-between; 
  But soon the wind will keening come, 
   And gray and white will cover green. 
   There is a rhythm, mad and great, 
  That all must learn and feel to know 
 We think that we're in charge, when we 
Are just part of the ebb and flow.