you’re on a plane but you are not coming home,
waiting in line, third for take-off, a life through
oval windows, and you’re off again, gaining air
losing ground, time spend moving around,
departures and arrivals, runways and wind direction,
climbing and descending, landing gear,
it’s just another day, another day I drink tea alone,
another day the sky claims home
The Music Man, he soothes; he plays all his chords in blue,
leans back his head, eyes closed, fingers of a poet.
He plays out his soul, in sonnets of electrics strings,
harmonies of rain and green. He’s made of music, mountain,
and silence, still searching for his home. His melody
so sweet that clouds rain words, lift hearts into bloom.
Miles and miles away, she sits in peace by the sea,
and the mountain tells the waves the Music Man’s song.
She hears it all, Music Man’s dreams never sleep; she collects
each note, each word, each dream, two souls – and builds a home for both.
(today I decided to walk out deep into the woods until I came up with answers to the questions I have been pondering. after walking more than 7 miles in the heat, I found myself lying face down in a grove of trees, with no recollection of what had happened. i took this photo then. i was injured, dizzy, and in no shape to walk the remaining 5 miles back to my car, but i realized that, not only did i have no phone reception, but i had no one to call to come help me. somehow i made it out. i was in the woods for almost 5 hours. after i got home, i found this poem on my phone. i wrote it today, but i have no recollection at all of writing it. i think that says a lot.)
eight miles out i fall
black out, wake up
stones edge tree lean
ask. no reception here
no one to call. leaks
from knees, red, and eyes,
clear drops of alone
air crush with know. no
breath. out of focus all.
lost. alone. maybe here
home after all.
driving the day,
crossing the bridge to home,
sun opens her arms
still searching for home….
In the dips of the Blue Ridge Mountains,
where the soft blue cast blends with mountain streams
and stone walls, I settle in to a sparse cabin
on the side of a hill. It is Christmas Eve,
and I’ve made my journey, here,
away from what Christmas isn’t, to this
stillness that is coming home. The cabin is bare,
and cold. With twigs and logs left by another, I start
a fire, the fireplace making the cabin glow a gentle orange,
smell of wood smoke that makes me want to lie on
the worn blue couch and fall asleep to the crackling wood.
But it is Christmas eve, and I have no tree. In my many
years, I have never spent one without a decorated tree.
It seems a tradition I cannot forego. So, before I settle
by my fire with hot tea and dreams, I zip my coat and head
out into the blue twilight with the axe left by the door.
It doesn’t take long to find the perfect evergreen.
She calls to me, from the hill next to the cabin, and I go to her,
admiring her symmetry, the round of her back, her perfect point.
As the wind blows through her needles, she smiles at me,
and I know I shall never chop her down. I drop my axe
and contemplate. Surely she must be decorated for Christmas!
She shall look like a queen. Scurrying around like a chipmunk
gathering nuts for the winter, I collect pinecones, and berries,
dried flowers, and even a bird’s nest. Soon my splendid tree
is dressed for the holiday. The sun has set, and the cabin calls.
I sleep by the earnest fire, awaiting a silent Christmas,
and my Christmas tree dancing in her place in the hill.
Talking to the Clouds 