Pandemic I

A clean,

dry, and well

lighted place

carves out enough

space for me

to take up words again.

So cheap -  words 

seem to have

become - 

with chatter in

pandemic-speak all

the day long.

It took this long

for me to let a

niche be made

for sorting out of 

all things not only

un-related to the

pandemic, but not

related as well.

And so,

I sit in a shack

on the corner of

our 5 acre woods

in the Pocono 

Mountains, tracing

pencil lines onto

fresh pages of a 

fresh, new composition

book.

Knowing that I

would uncover things

that did not need

a pandemic to 

find ample worth.

The Heart of the Mountain

There is a stream
that flows from the
heart of the mountain
to my heart.

There is a wind
that blows across
her hills into me.

I can stand here
a thousand, thousand
times

and never
feel the
less for it.

She fortifies me
as a sister does,

knowing we share
the same blood,
the same toils,
the same heart.

Knowing we hold
the pain of all
existence

in our hearts;
softening us to
the core.

She takes the
dead and dying
and gives them
a place to give
up their hold

on all they
have known
to be living.

She tenderly turns
their bones into
tendrils and roots
pushing life back
out above her
skin.

There is a stream

that flows from the

heart of the mountain

to my heart.

Ciao!  

TJM+

All Disappearing

The houses
along the hillside
are all disappearing
behind
a slow
emergence of
leaves on the
budding trees.

The haze of purple-pink
is veiling everything
one bloom at a time.

Soon, the greening
leaves will hide even
the dirt of the hills
on which the trees stand,
holding them in place.

In two weeks the
mountains will appear
as lumbering isolates
with no dwellers,
no life other
than the trees.

Behind this
illusion, live the
people of the hills.

Seemingly invisible
soldiers of the woods.


Ciao!

TJM+

Descent from the Mountain

As we climbed
slowly down
the mountain

leaving our Glen Angeli;
our Glen of the Angels

the expanse
of mountains and
valleys spread
before us

reveal a purpling,
darkening veil
shifting
as a shadow

over the barren land
and leaf bare trees

the only contrast in its
graying wake
are the pines

spread out
in patches

and bunches
all across
the land.

______

Ciao!

+Tom