Our darlings of winter,
Tell us once more,
This passing of water,
That hungry denial of patience,
You so much waited for.
.
Your stories to fill a coming empty:
One last time.
Oh, please.
.
Our darlings of winter,
Give us this one day.
.
How many times,
Have we seen this moon set,
Sharp crescent,
Sliver of time,
Counting years,
To cast once more,
A warm May evening?
.
Our darlings of hope,
Freedom, maybe,
From bondage of self and season.
.
Please.
Flying to the Desert
On the plane,
Next to me;
Her book is Arabic, while
The big fellow in front;
Tattoos all over, hugs his daughter,
Whispering thoughts,
To her demurred, shy smile lighting
The seats where we sit next
To an old man from China going
To see his son after some twenty years:
Typing Chinese characters into his phone.
.
Yes, the rain is an irony here,
Coming quick and ferocious
Unlike the dampness of home
Where we light fires
And brew soups to convene
The solace of evenings.
.
Gosh I love all you people,
And want nothing more than
To disappear into those far mountains:
Out there.
.
For just a day,
I’ll watch the water,
Rush down,
So I can be one of you.
The back stairs
The kids will run up and down,
Asking about that pie on the table,
Again,
While waiting for one more oven baked treat.
Pests of the best.
.
The great December sky holds us here,
Like nothing ever will
Ever again.
.
I usually lie
Saying it’s beef tongue
In chipotle sauce.
And the men will smoke in the yard,
Feigning responsibility,
While the hens cluck and brood.
.
Hiding the last of fall’s huckleberries,
In plain sight,
On a plain tablecloth,
Beckoning to kids,
Running in from the back door,
To see what happens next.
I thought October would take the edge off.
After all, there’s no way this fickle light
and a few chance rains
Could turn my head any further.
.
Now the garden is all dead,
The light,
All left to morning now,
Just like yesterday,
And then again.
Please give me this solace,
Wanted and waited for,
Just this day.
.
Until you visit me in December,
With your gauze of reckoning
Perched overhead.
.
Then, I’ll remember the river,
All fog bound and sullen,
Bit by bit,
Tearing to pieces
The lives of nothing.
.
I hope your storms will roar,
Dark, dripping days,
Left with just a little ray of light,
Catching one more leaf,
Falling,
Into some forgotten cradle.
I barely remember seeing the night,
Like an old, dry Autumn
Not going away.
Help me turn this knob,
Sliding back,
To the waiting moon,
Eating at sunset’s table.
.
Let us turn this season,
Facing the wind:
Fading,
Faltering,
Disappeared.
.
Now come help us mend this place,
Spilling our anxious tears as one,
To gently warm this evening.
The slick waters will hold you there.
.
Time will become afternoon’s fast,
Before it curses the evening.
.
There is nothing moving water cannot cure.
Slipping gently downhill.
.
I just love swinging that fly through water I know.
.
One fish took me five years.
The others came back-to-back.
On a warm October afternoon.
The next will be my life.
Daring to dream a death amongst cobbles
On a liquored blackberry evening,
When the wind disappeared.
.
Fodder for caddis,
And winter’s green water to come.
Call early, to the stillness.
Follow all the shadows soon missed
Only to consume us.
.
Colored in leaf,
Painted in agony,
Watered in respite.
.
If I could escape time,
I’d choose not,
Rather to wallow
In sores
And dirt,
Gone dry and waiting.
.
Flail your gentle woes onto me,
And know that we will surely meet come Spring,
When the warmth calls again.
.
The soft caress of hill on sky,
The ease of soft grass,
The fetch of breeze on sun,
Releasing us from this torpid coil.
.
Count closely now,
Fingers won’t hold,
These tiny bits of air,
Teasing and sparkling,
Fluttering and moving,
Dancing to the new rhythm
Of a living sun.
.
I ask that we meet at the corner,
Where the long call of morning sits,
With flowering vines to hide us,
Scented in colors and closed eyes,
Wrapping us, curling us,
Pulling us into the stars above.
Gardens
.
The sky is indifferent to this corner,
While another ecology watches over
The intricacies of winter’s web.
.
Horizons are born here,
And will shine,
One last time,
Into a still gaze of stone.
.
Surely these things will linger.
.
We might be free then,
Sitting in the fading wind,
And sun.
At last.
While our shames fade
Into temples of silence.
.
No turning away,
No denial,
The great sweep of time,
Will gather this all up,
And bring us home
Once again.
Forget holding these days,
Slipping into winter’s cache.
Forget staring into evening’s countdowns
No sense is made in counting light
Where time is the futile game of the insane.
Shaken Rain 