the places we gather
inside
how we hide
in between
the pieces of yesterday
and the rise of tomorrow
within
us, and through all time
we didn’t know but walked
empty
trying to hold water
up
with our hearts, and how
it rained down
rained down
on
us
before
we
knew
Us
He and she lived a simple life of years
in a house with shuttered windows
and a garden of roses by the back door.
But she was I and he was you and years were only
things that didn’t happen and things that did.
And the house was a palace and a prison
and an empty box, and it was all so complicated.
The windows were weary eyes that always
watched, and the door, the door was the keeper,
the releaser, the rectangle of know; behind there,
questions were born. And yellow roses grew out back,
but so did thorns, and we never knew which we would
collect. Strings of together pulling, binds of tight,
and then invisible hands to reach down
and sweep away our tangled life.
almost together
white drops yellow
little bits of time
off beat seasons
float clouds fall
pieces, pieces letting
go, windy teardrops
autumn rain, hush
the leaving, bareness
grips broken air
cold returns truth
gone, can’t hold on
falling apart
talk to me, yellow tree,
tell me how you sing in gold
harmonies of light and float,
you lift and fall in autumn
pieces on the ground ~ whisper
your dance of shifting limbs
you tell time with your turn
teach me roots that grasp
frozen grip when all they hold is
gone
No one really knows the face
behind the garden gates, but
she smiles when the sun holds
her gaze. Eyes of ancient wonder
sing notes of blue upon the garden.
And when the leaves of fall crown her
gold, she holds it like it’s the last
she’ll ever know. Colors die,
cold creeps in, fades her into stone.
The flowers and sun betray her light.
She becomes invisible again.
memories
of time gone by
Rolls Royce reflections
We were so 19
that the world didn’t care if we slept
half the day, went to coffee with the professor
instead of class, and began the evening
just before midnight. The usual crowd
could be counted on to greet us warmly,
as we scrambled off the city sidewalks
swallowed by our college life. Beer, and
conversation, and the same familiar songs,
and we hugged and laughed and knew
19 would always be. But it’s not.
Someone else is borrowing 19 now.
Talking to the Clouds 