To Wait On the River

At the allotted time of day
I'll meet you under the tree
As green light sparkles through the limbs
I'd wait on the river Thames
Only because you asked me
There was nothing I could say

My time is unspeakably yours
Because you gave it back to me
And as you gave you also took
You even took my last look
You had refused to let me see
You sprinting through those oak doors

I try to come to terms with that
But for now in bed I'll lay
And think of nothing else but you
Else what have I left to do
Except remember when we prayed
That on the Thames we might have sat

In sunset broken swings of old
Where stories wait and then are told
Of winter biting back with cold
But by now I know your heart's been sold.

Ripples

This little pebble in the palm of my hands, it is brightest red

And smiles up at me so round and perfect

It asks for nothing more than wings

A little bird begging for the flight from its mother

Mother bird bends over and whispers with softest chirp

"Open your wings little one, and just let go"

So my pebble arcs through crisp air

To be divinely inspired by a floating and brilliant idea

Midst the space of synapses

And internal wiring, just electricity and chemicals

The little birdy tumbles falling to the banjo strum

Of a bittersweet goodbye

The glass is in view of dark and cool

Watery surface with answers to the questions

The ones formulated by electrical currents

And as pebble breaks glass in the slowest of possible motions

I smile

And the pebble smiles

As the water cascades up in a little torrent

The ripples form, casting out on the curves of the brain

Consequently, the sky is raining ashes

On my bare head and into the pond

Through my private grove the gray snow

Comes ever so softly

The pebble is sinking

the little baby bird with broken wings

You'll be buried in ashen mush

And I'll have to take my leave

I don't have forever

And I think

Somewhere up there

The sky must be burning.

Scrap

What stories are told on little scraps of paper

Tossed away and forgotten

What pieces of life

Are so easily given away

To a landfill

Or to another person

The confounding mass of all of these moments

Will outlast us all

To the ends of the earth the scraps will fill

In the darkest places, also long forgotten

What loss

And secrets

Remain hidden beneath each other

Never again to be touched

Or thought

What's said is done

And what's done has been said

Resting in graves

The papers of feeling are dead

And they're never coming back

Second Glance

There is only this moment

Which soon becomes the past

And only a passing idea

To make way on steady conveyor belt

For a concept just as unobtainable

A future

With you

And this lonely mountaintop

With head above the clouds

This is the closest you can get to heaven

Through layer upon layer of air

We rise through our past

With the tectonic growth of a mountain

Owned by two

And even here

We are split, worlds apart

With longing sight

The winds blow for us

And now is the future

Which becomes the past

Then a now and along

This line of constant weathering

And change

Transformation and travel

We can reach this mountaintop through time

And climb

To the peak to be alone

Where the sun smiles

Where I smile

And you,

You beam

Radiating like the sun

This moment slips like sand

Carried by a sigh

And all I can do

Is watch

As the rays bounce in glittering patterns

Off the surface of the sand

From this ever growing

And lessening mountain

But as much as I want them back,

Little reflections of you and me,

They glide

Through layers of air and space

To a lonely road

In some moment

That exists now as a concept

And a speck lands in my upturned palm

On this empty road

I know it's mine

And somewhere

In the distance

You're walking toward me.

A Childhood of Jumping Off Rocks

Sometimes it takes chance

To make the leap of faith

Described by so many men

All dead

The leaps

Or little skips

From on moment to the next

One stone sunk in a lake

Another then another

Treacherous slips

Jagged edges scraping skin

But stones sink

Under the weight

Of books in the pack

Penned by your own hand

The accounts of dimensions of jumps,

Of wounds, of rocks in water

Until the weight overcomes

Carrying you forward

Momentum thrusting you

With the push of an immature friend

And wobbling at the edge

Of glass surface

Worries arise

Of water soaked pages

Running with wet ink

But the last leap, the fall

It seems to mean everything.

Fire

The light of the sun

Shines on our faces

In the campfire round

With the dark of night

That signifies not death or an end

But life and growth

Of love and contentedness

Frigid air, as only the dead

Of winter

Can wrap people in,

Coils around our blankets

As our blankets clothe us

It fights with claws

To find a way in

But the warmth of laughter

Burns it away

Sunlight trapped

In the combustion of wood

And if blankets and laughter

Are not enough

To ward off the weather

We have each other

God-given warmth

From a fire burning within

To reach out and cloak

With gentleness and compassion

Those here

Around the blaze

The stars wink,

With happiness of an onlooker

At what they see

Under a midnight veil

The intertwining limbs

Tree branches

Roots never to be ungrounded

Leaves sprouting from an unfathomable sustenance.