poetry & other

now upon us, enter the

a song composed but not completed.

yet i hear the whole,

am waiting for my fingers

late leaves hanging

on the peach tree

fluttering in the chill breeze

as brown birds bracing

the steam swirling up,

a murmuring of starlings

Part 1

he planted in hope

- as all who plant - 

bowls of dark sweet fruit

 overflowing

but each season only a 

 handful

spared from the birds and bugs

still hope for the next or afterwhiles

Part 2

early April

 and no leaf - 

no resurrection for this life - 

he breaks branch from branch,

 a hatchet for the larger ones,

a twisting turning pop

 to release the trunk from its anchor

saved now in hope

drifting between darkness and

 light,

as the bow of an ancient ship

my little love,

an hour or a year, time matters not

but that we are not together.

i send you out into the world —

my heart goes with you

cottontail tracks

 in today’s snow

will be covered again

 come tomorrow

but for the night

he passes between shadow and darkness

as the rooms of an ancient house,

windows boarded up from robbers and sunshine

and the wind creeps through cracks 

worn smooth by the ebb and flow

my edges gone with the tide

i am fragments of my former self

softer but less useful,

a piece to display by the window,

picking late raspberries

 early Autumn evening

  fingers stained with the conquest

always one more, i search for it --

skin torn from the leaf-stem-thorns

some are taken by the bugs

 or the rot of time,

too many  days lost on fruitless labors,

but today a harvest bowl full.

i leave some for another day,

where have you gone to?

or were you always on the way out,

 as a bird with one wing out of the nest?

i look for you but do not recognize

 who you have become.

you fly away and do not return,

emptiness on the edges

 like a coat fraying

  more each day,

less able to hold worth,

(Spanish for being moved by a work of art)

he felt rather than saw

 the master’s painting -- 

felt the brush strokes and 

 crackled canyons of oil,

the ache of mistake covered over

 with perfection,

breath and sweat upon canvas

he reaches

but just beyond

is the substance of meaning,

 that which could fill,

shadow on the wing

swift flyer on urban winds

seen out my window

stone fruit withered on the tree,

August scorched the flesh

 and left only bone

my heart the same, scorched

 and shriveled in the heat,

left to rot inside of me

August 13, 2019

for Eden