Slow Breathing

February 26^th, 2011

After chilling shakes.

Long thinking

After hope one takes.

Imagining all the feelings left unfelt

All the words that needn't been dealt.

The divisions of inevitable conflict

The embraces of indelible connection.

The past's dulled hues

Once vibrant and confusing.

The gifts to bring

Another, freeing me.

Selective is envisioned remembering

Containing all the joy

And none of the sorrow

Of a future not touched,

The coming day shrouded

In night to find

Never this sun to rise,

Twilight, the moon, shines

Hope of love's reprise.

It’s the Day Between

February 13^th, 2011

Solstice and equinox

Everything is in motion

Warming sun makes sleeves roll up

Then off they go with the wind.

From its cold breezes

Not yielding to lines of season

Written in orbiting paths

Knowing the sun draws closer

To its host where on people

Come out of housed and

Clothed enclosure to steal

Its solitude among trees

Clogging its swift passage

From point A to B,

The will of the wind continues

Tickling branches

Rolling leaves

Lifting birds

Soaring free.

The wind feels its coming weight

Water its heavy hydration,

That makes it hate

The culprit--evapotranspiration.

Water’s great excitement

To rise from the body

And meet the sky

Where in kind acquaintance

He celebrates with brothers

Their fall becoming a dance

Of jubilation, together,

Knowing every secret in life

That three forms

And four spheres afford.

People fight to endure

But love to enjoy

A hot drink in cool spaces.

The tea stirred quickly

Before chilled fast

Sugar left swimming

At the bottom.

Finally giving in

Another layer’s put on

Facilitating one more

Breath in fresh air

Feeling God

In the warming cotton blend,

A promise of reaching the sun’s season

Of flavor in full dissociation.

The Sky Sparkles

January 28^th, 2011

The flight of gulls

Of lake not sea

Flash wings

In setting sun

Shifting colors

On placid surface.

The winged elm stares on

Wishing for sky

While wait-listed to standing

Want for spacious air

Weighted without soaring shape

Streamlines stranded

For waving in the wind.

Left to see the sun

From forested frames

The winged elm stays,

Satisfied in the waiting

Towering high

Surfaced near the water

Becoming the sky

In moon light.

When a Friend is Found

February 16^th, 2011

To be more than once thought,

It sends a chill,

Is it all for not?

When given one word

From questions conferred,

The heart falls

To yearning for more

Than an unanswered question

And the time spent without

Knowing we could go far

To look in those eyes

And see deepest longing

To share moments

Of silence that belong.

It runs from despair

To the deception of hope

Beyond the grasp of a hand

The heart is a stone

Mine has been thrown

Into a turbulent river

To a land unknown

By Clark or those after

A nation in a brave new world?

Freedom from ignorance,

Still knowledge set to pyre

The fags of a fire

People not welcomed in

But pushed out,

All that’s theirs

Crushed and felled,

Sending feet to edge

Love over ledge.

From hate in moral's name

Will the moral be broken,

Before their time

Before their love

Never joined

Never token.

Born from a legacy

Of socially-scriptured jealousy

For the rights of the majority

On soil claimed for this nation

Where destiny is owned

By no god and no one,

Yet leased to a few

By the fewer—exceptions—

Excepting none from the uniform;

A shirt tested through the ages;

Shoes in a path well-worn;

Security to those who conform.

How far would have been enough

To realize love in unique tread

And unique thread?

Across the mountains

To another sea,

Another ocean,

Another country,

To lands not discovered,

Left unencumbered,

By laws that would limit

The distance of your stride

And the gleam in your eye,

The jump in your heart

And your hair with a part,

The words on your lips,

And a God who never strips

The pride of a man who loved in earnest.