Left Behind III

As your excitement bubbles

A wrench knots my innards.

With each item you neatly packed in,

Undone is my social sweater.

There is no exaltation without a sundering below.

I am left behind as you are freed.

A sentence of solitary freedom.

As you fly away I’ll take a picture

To touch that assoiling wind

In captured film, my instant shuttering.

Left Behind II

Sounds of an electric toothbrush

Ring at the sight of crusty outlines

On porcelain sink.

Drawers only half empty from packing

Done too slowly, of a broken e-reader,

A family portrait, used paintbrushes.

A colorful collection of permanent markers,

Bottles of empty beer in a line up against the window,

None looking me straight in the eye.

A half drawn plot plan, like the final walk and goodbye,

We rushed to avoid the end by sitting around. Now

The course to come is left to intuition.

It doesn’t take a discerning eye to see

I’ve been left to clean up their mess.

Left Behind I

This place hasn’t changed. 

My space remains constant

While yours has been vacuumed

Formless and void.

I bump into traces drifting around all morning,

Specters of a world forlorn and lost.

If only they weren’t real, horrid reminders.

Birds you named continue to fly about,

The handmade beehive still buzzes,

Fish swim gaily, trusting your hand

To feed them at the dimming of day.

Huddling Pigeons on Warming Tile Roof

Eight, dun grass in mauve setting light,

The trees that exhale by dropping leaves
Having held their breath all summer
Relaxing in the worst of wurthering winds,

Finding a pilgrim's fire in the deepest mountain winter,
A stream whose trickle continues months past rain,

Whispers that the end of life isn’t just being riven

Into cavernous silence, but climbing into a cozy bed—

Dreams that manifest when all things stretch

For spring rays beyond the solstice, bounding in ecstasy,

A  limning of verdure again.