Someday

Someday,

the sky will drop

a poem right onto

your lap, or maybe 

into your pocket. 

So be sure to check 

them; and check often.

It may not be

the sky itself that

drops the poem;

maybe it’ll be a poetic

archangel or a god.

But a poem will drop

down to you; sometimes

wholly formed and ready 

to be sounded out; and

other times in need of work.

It may begin 

with a color like 

aquamarine or gray. 

Or it may launch right 

into an anapest. 

I wouldn’t be at

all surprised if it was 

about a fugue or a

even a delicate flower

like a Spring Beauty.

It will probably have

an aroma like a gardenia or

a rose; and, a hushed and

muffled sound like an owl

flying low in a snow squall.

It will feel full in your

mouth as you begin to

give the words vocalization.

Rolling around and out

with an ease and solemnity.

Wait for it.  I have seen it

happen again and again.

When it does it is up to you

whether you act surprised

or as if you knew it all along.

But, it’ll be yours.  Your poem

full of your favorite things and

all sorts of personal innuendoes

and ash.  Things coming up

and out of you as if they knew.

As if they knew that this poem

of yours was sent to you, from

you and meant to set you free 

to become more the you you

are.  Free to be you; you alone.

So get ready for it; wait and

watch and wait some more.

Imagine how it will arrive and

what the full measure of its cloth

will look and feel like.  It’s yours.

Someday.

Torn From the Cloth

They have joined

a larger cloth whose

whole escapes my

view. They have

been torn from one

side of life’s quilt 

and added to another.

This hand-sewn tapestry

of my days alights

with muted squares

of earthen tones.

The ochres bleed

with tawny hues and

darkening shades toward

mosses and decay.

Sometimes, I am given

to wonder why. Why the 

tearing must go on at all.

Why the ones who were at 

my side have been removed

and taken far away.  Away

to a shadowland of long

forgotten forms and of

lingering vaguenesses.  

The cloth of life is rent

by death and there is a 

numbness we hold dear

until the shock allows us

to pull out the pins and

reblock the squares in

a new pattern on the 

other side.  A pattern

that must hold until we 

might sew them all back 

together; back anew.

Perched As I Am

Perched as I am

on solid ground;

I am watching the

wind marshal her

forces and gather

her friends.

First, dust clouds.

Then, leaves.  And,

let us not forget 

pink petals.  All

going around and

up before the falling

down of each piece

of their whole.

Again, a whirl

picks up over there

and settles over

here, without so

much as a nod

to understanding why.

I feel the random

nature of these

flurries of motion

deep in my days.

Unsure if chaos

is meant to be

the way on.  Or,

if I am to keep 

searching for a respite

and having to pull

the pieces of my me

back together for

a time - settled.

Perched as I am

on solid ground;

I am watching the

wind marshal her

forces and gather

her friends.

Merroir

If I wrote “merroir”,

dear reader, would

you look it up or pass

over the brine and

move on to the next 

line, searching amid

the sand and kelp for

hints and suggestions.

Or, what about “terroir”?

Would the harshness of

the “t” stand against the

“m” and push you to

grab the OED, rifling for

meaning across onion skin

pages of wisdom and time.

For either, let me just say

this, that the place of a 

thing is always considered

and discovered in the thing

itself.  It should never be

a surprise.  But, can the 

nuanced notes and finishes

be deciphered to reveal

meaning and context,

influence and radiance of

just where the place has

lovingly rubbed itself off?

Tell me, dear reader, where do

you look for the meaning of a 

thing; where do you uncover place?

Shadows and Funky Days

Shadows lay themselves across the limbs and branches of the trees.

Darkening the purpling stand already fresh with buds awaiting spring.

My heart goes still watching clouds, casting shadows on the hills.

How quick the hollers cold become when fluffy  silhouettes hide the sun.

That I could see so clearly from afar the sweeping objects covering my light.

That I could hold those days as artistry of how the heart feels its own landscape.

Most often things just suck or have an ambient malaise dampening the longed for joy. 

These inescapable days of disarray, of drafty and somewhat solemn isolation,

are the fodder that feeds my soul to climbing up upon the mount of the mundane

to hunger with my eyes and with my soul for a brightness to shed upon my own understanding.

A FRESH MORNING POEM

 Just below the ambient thrum of

of our discourses and conversations,

our words are coming together to

form the structures of our beliefs.

A wall here, a door there, and yet again

a window to the sea.  Ways we allow the

coming and going of all sight, and sound,

and bodily movement away from and toward.

This subterranean village is always with us

as we glide through our days.  One day it is

our hearth and sanctuary, another it is our

fortress and limitation.  Always there - under.

Dig deeply and find your Skara Brae.

Twisted Trunk

 Did he feel the

anguished twisting

lo those many years

of angst and wind;

torment and despair.

If he had been a

person, we’d have 

never heard an end.

Yet, the change was

daily and long, tedious

and unending.  His life

silently never the same.