24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
5 years of love
of overcoming the distance
of travels, hellos and goodbyes
5 years of love
have brought us much closer
even if sometimes
so far apart
5 years of love
such a single
modest digit
but the count is still on
5 years of love
will not be measured
by time alone
Ah, the golden brew of sweetest flavor,
tis my joy to sip and savor.
Wine of the gods,
wrung from gentle flowers.
Allowed many a warrior to pass a fine hour.
Sweet mead, I drink to thee.
May you ever be close to me.
In deepest need, in darkest hour,
or as I lay naked among the flowers.
You sore my spirit,
and lift my heart.
Oh, that we may never part.
You swim my reason,
let me drink mead at every season.
“Golden Shovel” poem after John Haines’s “The Hermitage”
I am lost in a forest
A tangle of moss crawls below
My feet, an endless stone stair
Up to a waterfall I finally recognize, a secret
It has no name
Mine is carved
Into a nearby dogwood,
my childhood tangled among its roots.
West Coast Sunset (“it starts by dimming the light”)
Everyone has to see it
(even if after it starts)
time ticks slowly by
at first, then sky is dimming
and colors blur into the
horizon, long after the sun looses light.
Unfulfilled most, if not all, of your promises
Place her at the last rung of the ladder of your priority list
Despoiled everything of her little happiness and quirkiness
Criticize all of her demeanors,
whether intentionally or just plainly criticize her
for the heck of criticizing.
Laugh at her lapses and mistakes
Be unmindful of her well-being,
disregarding her “not-feeling-good” gripings
Destabilized her thinking process, equilibrium
and sense of oneself
Make every one laugh at her expense
You taketh and taketh and she to giveth and giveth.
And flirt to your heart’s content
In her presence and much more in her absence
Success is in the offing
You just lost her, congratulations!
the rain fell
and if you heard
if you listened
you would hear it,
soft strains of them,
a man and woman,
dancing,
and to them, in that rain,
there is nothing else
nothing,
save for heartbeats
and the drum of rainfall.
Dapple of sunlight floats back and forth on the wind,
Wings beat together to stay off the ground
flittering
fluttering
floating
flickering
flapping
Flowers reaching up to help the frantic little dapple of sunlight
life so short
Fighting against harsh winds
from flower to flower
and still the dapple keeps taking to wing
flittering
fluttering
floating
flickering
flapping
with each flower she helps bring the seeds
drinking to refresh
moving on to the next
flittering
fluttering
floating
flickering
flapping
A life moving
A life bringing more life
flittering
fluttering
floating
flickering
flapping
I am swept away.
Toes pointed, scuffling
unable to walk
but dancing
with a lightness that
sparkles
like happy motes
in sunlight.
Where have I been?
Where did I go?
Where am I now?
I haven’t the wits to guess,
the breath to answer.
My feet prance on.
My mouth could never hope to lay shape
to these melodies,
speak this wordless language:
its vowels too delicate,
its rhythms too complicated
for my heavy American tongue.
If I close my eyes,
my body will dance on
and on,
twisting and gyrating
and meeting people whose names
I don’t understand.
When I open my eyes,
where,
why,
and who
will I have become?
In response to Katy Adelson’s “Swallowtail Jig”
high energy fingered tune
for tapping toes, knees stepping high
partnered bodies reeling across the room
skirts and shirtflaps aflutter, flushed faces
relentless good times after hard work
with joyful abandon
swb
And sometimes
When she slips on her faded tartan shirt
And liberates her hair from its braid
When the sun kisses her fair cheeks
And her eyes glow emerald
He thinks he catches a glimpse of something
Ancient and ageless
He thinks he catches a fragrance of something
Heather and peat
And he would not tame her
Even if he could