Only comes out
On coldest days
Wild wind snaps
My face into shape.
Any passing stranger
Notices cool change
Friends embrace
Challengers turn tail.
It holds space
Though never filled
Gravitates to places
Where eyes first locked
Pockets turned inside out
Lint was spilled.
Gaze darts from butterflies
To fleeting smiles
Peering through the aisles
Of best sellers.
Silent goodbyes
Are all that linger now.
Hesitant
Tentative
When the hurt is all you had left
Step into grove of golden flowers
Tread the path that leads
To roaring waves defending sea
Hear the words fall upon soft ground
Mingling with memories of another
Gently lapping morning tide
Safe harbour sunlit, teeming with new life
Steer your own way out
Return to me, steady turn of rudder
Double back if your heart is sore
Come alongside save rocky shore.
Who knows what
Tomorrow will hold
All the while
These hands
Strive to let go
Past is behind
Empty hands
Listening heart
Brave as the deep
Incline is steep
Willingly foreword
The answer in mind
Do not grow too content
With being alone
Empty seats beside
Roll eyes as party behind
Chatter happily
Warily evading suggestions
Of a match maker
Relishing breadth of one in bed.
Sprawling diagonal
Clutching hot water bottle
Catching clouds racing
Through the mind.
Know this
There is one somewhere
Who exudes sunshine
Their gaze radiates
Over skin and lips
Eyes ablaze
Tense pain of shoulders
Eases, deeper breath
Healing
This is the test.
Does their presence
Feel like a Sunday evening?
Something more than
Daily chores
Paralysis upon waking
People, places, beings
Something in the way
Of feelings
Daily trifles melt like jelly
Vast continents, time and space
Forces crushing, melting, drifting it all away
Temporary angst
A sense of wonder remains
Shivers
Run the course of river
Tributaries of nervous system
Down my spine at night
Rocky outcrop
Showing black line of ash
Extinction, though not quite
Disappearing of past life
Seagrass
Luminescent pink through to stout browny black
Traces the lines of tide
Beneath soft cake mounds of sand
Deciduous
Shedding of old life
Happens annually above our collective minds
Imagine the life force stagnant
In tributaries of its truncated spine.
Know that we and they flow in seasons
We are not immune in our glass hothouses
Cold buries deep till last sight of snow
First signs of new life
Mere bud or daring flower show.
First time I kissed you
By accident, on cheek
I whispered, "see you soon"
Ablaze, I stepped onto river's edge
- once where we met -
Time and again
To cool my thoughts.
Last time we hugged
It was all you
A friendly pat around broad shoulders
As I stooped down
Like a medal winner
Empty handed
I could not throw my arms around
. It was orchestrated by another
.. my arms were loaded with jackets and books wrapped in cotton
... I knew it would be the last.
Since then, how carefully the silence is conducted through an orchestra of friends.
While I write lyrics to music I can only imagine.
In the kindness of strangers
Yet marvel at how a best friend, lover, partner
Can become less than a stranger
In a day
Some people collect people
I collect shells
Beach treasures are beautiful
Even when we don't know what they are.
People are beautiful even when we don't know who they are.
I find it hard to know who is a friend
Until they show me
One way or another
Still, I believe in them
Even when they don't show up.
I believe I need to believe in me before I place so much belief in another.
If mine is the heart in whom I trust.
Blossoms burst on piles of rubble
Pushed aside building highways through suburbia
They catch the afternoon sun
A showy illumination of pink hits your eyes as you drive towards bleak horizon.
That's what it's like to meet her
It captivates immediately
Exclaim The blossoms are out!
Sit in wonder as to whether
Fruit might be produced
From the meddling of bees upon flower
What kind?
I still wonder
Was it too early, then, to produce anything?
In the life of our young tree
Did the bees delay?
Did the wind invade and blow soft petals away?
Or is the display merely decorative?
Beauty is a keeper.
Four years on, I should surely wonder.
I collected all the fallen limbs and driftwood memories.
Looking into your eyes, examining your face
the details of every freckle on your arm, the shape of your ear
your smile and lips.
To make driftwood art and admire it all day.
Some days, the hard ones
It feels like some unknown people piled all our memories up and set it alight.
Warmed themselves by the fire of the passing night of memories that never happened.
It fuels my sadness, a touch of resentment.
Who are these well meaning people, perhaps cold, they were, who had to warm themselves by the fire of us to feel alive.
Who threw in a pinecone of ‘what if’, or ‘why would you’ that sputtered and sparked in the flame.
I know all the things that they say.
I spend my days willing the life out of me, as alone as one can be.
So these humans, whom I do not envy, the ones who are alone like me, can know all the kindness that resides within. As one who knows what alone really means.
Count the stars of heaven 