swallowtail

paced precision
bangs need cutting
clothes too baggy
skin saggy
what do we measure?
when do we care    
enough
to braid that crimson thread
hitch a ride on a blackbird bed
pluck the feathers from pink solitude
unraveling the tempest
touching love's conquest
love's conquest?
ah!
AH
    more likely...
a draw
a tie
a coin balanced 
equanimity smoothed 

tucked
no triumph
no parade today
just
breath drawing
heart thawing
under the haze
and
heat
of this July sun

ticktock

 ... you dreamed me as i dreamed him 

in wool & shadows waiting 

how does that work in the field between here and there?

do we belong? 

the thing is 

i am merely summers dust motes 

weltering 

belonging everywhere 

and nowhere 

indigo sparrows alighting between lunar moths 

as marigolds bloom 

i belong in the golden orange bloom of evermore 

trembling green ...

just as i know where i am 

i am lost 

between the petaled folds with a taste of pennies & sky in my mouth 

what is this place? 

this plateau of change 

one moment replete with vastness and the next 

narrow 

outlined in sorrow's gaberdine 

time rushes unapologetically from branch to branch to sun beams of yesterday 

trapped i am in this landscape of age & everything 

golden 

golden 

wait for me there 

diamond night

were you there? 

with textures soft 

green t-shirt striped shorts short skin fresh as sixteen 

to sixty 

fireflies light this room where you sit 

legs gambled crossed with a face I know as yours 

tilted back to night 

rising 

bending to you 

there is kiss that travels thru time 

to 

this 

foggy summer morning like a song that won't go quietly .... 

were you there 

     in that diamond dream night? 

beingness

 the space between the trees & me 

filled with morning's haze 

a stillness transcendant 

verdant breath carries the call of the blue jay into my marrow 

filling 

stilling 

every cell & particle between the trees & me 

abundant the air 

this dense gray dawn 

awaiting the sun ....

wednesday's child

though the cut is sharp ...

shallow rest the ditches of sorrow & loss 

stark against the morning grey as blue jays call to the rain 

and the missingness 

everything is grey--fields & farther 

sky & storm 

heart & bone 

thick this haze --this touchstone 

the closer you gaze at the bottom, the sharper the contrast 

between then 

and now 

then and now ...

wild the ache 

wide the place of grief 

keep it close and weave from it a life rich with stones 

and the water of sorrow 

when it rains in june

 when it rains in june and the trees delight 

anthems shimmering from drenched leaves 

as birds sing to the grey 

such is this day 

a dog barks revealing the spaces between here 

and there 

echoed overcast arched green & greener 

where do clouds go when it all goes to grey? 

where should i ... 

go