leave no trace

stillness a shadow
bluejay brings grace
warm winds
break across my face
sun darts to weeds & waiting bones
slow down
return me home

love burns like skin when out too long
nothing remains by four
but
the wind
      and the something more

stillness a tremor
stillness a light
warm winds
against the white
sun too hot
day too long
slow down
summer's song

smells like rain

the jarring road
the blue sky
the wind
the sorrow
the rhythm of this day carves birds from my bones
     and they fly they fly
becoming the morrow

I am of dust and sweeping grasses green
the passage of clouds
sky a blue I've never seen

the humming 

the buzzing 

all around all around 

sweat sticky & nectar sweet 

(apparently) 

wildflowers yellow as far as the eye can see 

the jarring rattling road 

the bluest sky 

the ceaseless wind 

the hollow sorrow 

the rolling rhythm of this day widens my heart 

     and it beats it beats 

becoming the morrow 

to hold this course 

to raise the hope 

chase the dream of something wider 

something vaster 

something beyond the grasp 

becoming the wind 

becoming the hollow 

becoming the humming 

becoming the sky 

becoming the blue 

in july at two o'clock

this place
hollow
full
all things at once
both sublime & jagged
as the break of a bone across the expanse of the night
does heartbreak make a sound
when there is no one there to feel it?
and why does broken seem unbroken?
hollow not hollow
in the distance there is a humming
low & constant
or is it a pulsing--a tempo I can not keep pace with

regardless
butterflies come to the milkweed and the thrumming becomes
the speed of light 

amazing

moths &  dragonflies
dust & vinca vines
sparks of yesterday beneath my rubber heart
perched like meadowlarks upon the barbwire of night
here where the sky forgets forgiveness
oh better days where are you hiding?
there along the tree line of the river wide?
move the rock & shift the sand--find the gold
scrape away the top soil of the field & return the bones
there are better days somewhere tucked below the stones
moths & dragonflies
dust & vinca vines
sun, moon & stars guide me to the sliver lining

the topography of missing

somedays
a salt flat
white as a blank page
flat - wide open primal plain
dusty & surreal
with a dome of vast blue
horizon to horizon
marked
by chem trails & echoes & thorny things
my presence a shadow
upon time
somedays
a lush prairie rolling
smelling of summer golden
somedays
the stone that lies in a river
polished & weary
somedays
nothing extraordinary
becoming ordinary when pressed between the layers
of you 

of May ...

Baltimore Orioles visit the hackberry tree now

surprising the shadows
with its vermillion joy
stealing purple from the sky
sometimes the wind blows the branches so
tumultuously that the world shimmers green
a thousand shades verdant & conscious
seeking the sun 

before

there was once
everything
tucked between blades of grass
small worlds teeming
the smell of the cosmos brought to bone
riding on one inhale
lodging behind your heart
the sun
warming the day that lies before you like cherry kool-aid
no damping the
everything
with
shame
shame comes later on long legs & captured birds
regret tastes of open roads & momentary forgetfulness
a summer promise of daisy-chains & blue

now
we dig deep below the soil--below the skin
to tap the current of knowing
we should have gone there years ago
tapped the root of truth below the surface
ate of the fruit with relish & owning

shame has two sides

blades of grass hold the whispered secrets
come ~ lie with me here and taste the madness of this world

this day
before it is too late