| My Poems |
| She tumbled over my hood A flash of red robin-breast on my windshield And breathed her last on the cold cement As I plowed on toward my vital destination I had not even noticed the dark clouds Which had forced her down, near the road When she should have flown high above my roof Unencountered and even unnoticed by me Struck by a chance encounter Injured by a traveler without malice And without cause or explanation |
| You said you loved me and The Sun shone on hooded eyes; The sky poured blessing out on An uncomprehending mind. After these years I begin to Understand the full depth of The truth in the word, "love." We are one tree from root to leaf tip And one spirit seeing the world from 2 bodies. "Soul Mate" is only a hint of what we know together. So I honor your birthday as the Anniversary of Love, My own celebration of the Goddess in You. |
| Funeral Dirge for a Marriage |
| I stand at the podium with an empty mouth But my head is full of this, and that, and nothing. The words buzz quickly by, like a bee, unidentified, Then mix with the hive until they are nothing. Can a tree still stand when the roots are sodden And rotten with inattention, slowly becoming nothing? Just more soil, more pain, more empty words. The strength of the trunk, the beautiful tasty fruit Cannot hold up a tree, cannot stretch the leaves up Toward the sun, toward growth, and cannot Continue to produce more when planted in nothing. If only time would stand for eternity to allow us to Return, to reach down again; to grasp firmly the Earth And then reach up, and out, and build something. One more time to suck hard the life we lack From within the Earth, within us, and rebuild the roots. Can the sky cry from empty clouds, the heavens Weeping dry tears and blessing the grass with arid dew? Can the river run back, spreading again the stolen silt? I worry we won't, can't, couldn't be what we dreamed, If only because we did dream and did not know. I pray for miracles and strive to live as though the Miracles had happened, and wonder why they haven't. Now the well has quit running, no bubbling up and Could use some cistern water, but the cistern is Broken and has held us no water for reserve. No truth, or love, or joy, or even general decency, So the well must stand dry and forgotten and empty Holding no wealth for the future, holding nothing. |
| Shadows stretched long in the evening Falling silently over all, Unobtrusive, Inescapable, Are dealt by none, save the gods. In the center of town lives a man Who walks in peaceful bliss Neither seeing, nor caring for, shadows; A man who in manic ignorance Plucked out his eyes, And lives without fear of shadows. We strive against the dark even knowing The brightest flame carries its own Frightening, flickering shadows. |
| The heavy hand weighs hard Till the dust is eaten by My serpent self, and yet I am not hate, nor evil, Only the astonished lover Of the heavy-handed. I have learned so well To crawl, slithering easily But to stand? I feel I have forgotten how But my legs grow stronger And longer with new hope. So a great voice bursts forth From old lungs renewed. By the quiet fires of Heaven & The lash no longer speaks To the broken back of then, For my fist is holding now. |
| Heavy-Handed |
| A coffee, a brownie, a smile That says hope perseveres; The courageous optimism uncowed By necessary caution or even the Law of Averages or other such cold And realistic concepts of possible outcomes. Each day is not just a new beginning But the first beginning all over again And a chance to be friends at least Meeting for brownies and coffee. |
| I think of her, not as broken or bleeding But with her perfect feathers rumpled Disheveled and out of place, her perfect Wings at an ugly angle now that She had tumbled over my hood And the knowledge makes me cry a little Not from guilt or shame, but from a different sadness At this lovely bird broken by my innocent But ignorant rush to my vital destination Her own destination stalled, or unreached. |
| On The Discovery That I Have Broken a Heart |