Here we are
With one quest in life
To be free
How is this virtuous prize to be won
Where is it to be found
To be latched down by your own life
By your own heart
To love someone with your heart
And for them to not love back
Them being your lock to freedom
And the key saying, 'forget'
Forget that love
For it will never be returned
Forget those feelings
For they likely have been pushed aside
Forget those memories
Your eyes are green…
Or maybe brown or blue
But whatever color they are
They remind me of spring.
Your hair is brown…
As brown as a grizzly bear’s coat.
Or as brown as a big oak tree’s bark.
You laugh as if there is no tomorrow.
You are my dream boy.
Tall as a tree?
That you are.
Brave and strong.
You are my dream boy.
Your hands are like butterflies
In orchestra.
Your smile….oh,
Every time my heart beat it beat in time with yours
Every time I took a deep breath your lungs filled with air
We were completely in sync
Mind and body
Heart and soul
We will always be linked even though you aren't here
I miss feeling you
hearing you
Just knowing that you were mine
You, my love
The one I made and the one who made me
You feel like sunshine
A warm ray beaming down across my skin
Soaking you in
You aren't around often
No one could ever find sunshine like you
You feel like moonlight
A cool shimmer lighting up my sky
Watching you grow
You aren't around often
No one could ever find moonlight like you
Fifty years have passed since I learned
it is possible to hear snow fall,
it is possible to choose and stay.
And though times and places flicker
on the periphery and people come and go,
always you remain in focus at the center,
standing in the forest in your thin black boots
listening to the falling snow.
I want to love things all by myself,
not looking sidelong to see
if others are loving them, too:
the sky like old blue glass held in by a tracery of trees,
the great horned owl’s cynical question–
Who’s awake?
the falling cold stars of snow.
One night I snowshoed in the woods alone,
the full moon lamplight gleaming
through the lace of soft snow clouds.
Coming toward home I saw in the frame of an uncurtained window
the painting of a summer orchard
above my piano against the green wall,
my husband moving across the kitchen with his teacup.
I thought I would break for joy.
Did I meet your ghost in Paris–
slim shadow brushing by that night
on the street in Montmartre?
I like the way you look at me
after all these years.
That rose that fell
from the balcony in Pigalle
and landed at my feet–did it drop
from your long fantomatique
fingers? Maybe it was your esprit
murmuring compliments
in terrible French as I sunned
in a green chair in the Tuileries.
Your breath on my neck while I lingered
in the café drinking red wine
and watching the moon . . .
Breaking out of deep sea fog
in moist full moonlight
buoys rocking bells
We’re all coming ashore.
Who of all these passengers
gets to make love tonight?
Lean brown lovers kiss on the deck
their smooth hair blows together.
A fat grey man and his shabby wife
eat potato chips in the snack bar,
their feet touch under the table.
When he brings her coffee she smiles,
with one rough finger strokes his hand.
I stopped asking.
Things happen anyway,
we stay or go:
never what I think.
And yet,
there is a kind of love,
a river slow as Everglades
moving through sawgrass,
flood sometimes,
sometimes dry.
Not deep, but wide,
and most days enough
to float the canoe.
A winding road through the bright-leaved maples,
a hillside orchard where a girl sells apples,
a brown cow pond with wind stirring ripples.
A narrow path to the river shallows,
a strip of pebbles under the willows,
a muddy bank where the otter wallows.
The old stone bridge across the water
beside the oak where thrushes flutter o’er
ghost-white flowers where moths sip nectar.
The village street, dark, with circles of lamplight,
a call and a laugh, the squeak of a lychgate,
a soft step, a sigh, a quickening heartbeat.
Sugar,
You are my fantasy.
An enigma
that is wrapped
around my body.
I try to push you
away,
but you keep
coming back to me.
Baby,
why are you so
addicted to
my ecstasy?
All of my flaws
are on display,
yet, you stay,
I think it rains,
to show an emotion
that is otherwise unspoken.
Little is said,
yet, with every drop,
the connection between
us grows stronger.
The wall that we both
built to guard our hearts
has fallen.
We are naked,
Our vulnerabilities on full display.
We are no longer suffocating.
We are able to
take a deep breath.
Our love is set free from the clouds,