This One Idea

Do good things come to those who wait?
Or do they waste their days
And months and years in wishing
For the slightest of displays

That what they hope for might come true?
It’s hard to make a rule —
That one could then encapsulate
To teach at home or school.

But this — this one idea I have
And you helped me to birth it —
I waited all my life for you
And wow
It sure
Was worth it


Inspired by this prompt.

(“This One Idea” – 11-16-2014)

To Bridge Across

To bridge across an empty space
They made the wood and metal one;
In years before the years before
The living business still got done —

The dying business, too. We know
And yet we don’t, although it’s clear
We’re only where we are for those
Whose lives and deeds had disappeared

A while before the ones we knew.
They built our stories, and our trails;
They dwell within our living ways,
In half-remembered words and tales

That try to bridge from them to us.
A bridge that’s now in disrepair;
But how do you reach what matters when
Your own foundation isn’t really there?

Giants

I was the young one,
They were the giants;
Laughing across dinner tables,
Looking down at me through
Glowing wrinkled faces;
I was a marvel to them, they said,
And I believed them,
All my superpowers on display,
As off I went on still
Another adventure.

Now I am
The old one,
Looking out at them:
They are marvels to me, I say,
And I mean it:
All their magic powers on display,
But it’s I who, too soon,
Must be off on another

Adventure

Seasons

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

Snapshot: On Finding An Abandoned Stall in the Desert (Revised)

There was a final time: the stall set out,
With jewelry and fabrics in a line —
The next day, and thereafter then, no more;
No more, and soon, no one with memory
To paint in images or words the scene
That once was daily, year on year on year.

The mundane, the quotidian: our lives,
Not big events, but habits of our days,
They soon lie empty on a sandy waste —
The firebird heads into the unknown,
High o’er the mountains, just past where we see,
To leave behind our stalls for someone else