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.
sunflower faces
search the fields all summer
red barn looks on
What the sheep know (but don’t say)
is not to stand alone (stay together),
and the square behind them (not a door),
marks the difference between dark and light.
Time is measured in greening grass,
the wait for rain, and the length of winter
(I wait for things that never happen).
They walk the day with new eyes (I cry).
Red and white, sun and water, and me –
they see (we are all this day). I stand.
They stand. I wonder (the sheep know).
neighborhood/
I will try to see you/
with more than gray eyes/
when Spring returns
Talking to the Clouds 