was once a love poem here

After We're Gone

Sometime, when the snow has melted

and the bare roots of the tree

show dark against the dry dead grass...

sometime, when the first flower 

crops on a green stem...

that time will open an iron gateway

in the darkened stone wall

black with mold and dead ivy.

Sometime, when the yellow chrysanthemum 

grows again in the sunlight beside the walkway

and the cat struts along the ridgepole of the roof,

that time will tell a riddle about a wall

of one thousand stories

held together with mud and gravel

and the roots of ivy, ferns and moss.

A wall that fences off nothing, stands there

in the middle of a field without reason, an insane wall 

balancing a roof above a gate on two tall pillars

cut each from a single stone, a hollow roof

where swallows nest in April.

Redwoods Mantra

In the heart of the redwoods

the living silence stands.

All else flutters, drapes, and dims.

If I lower my eyes

in no way obtrusive

I too am a veil

on the breath within.

...

Errol & Maggie's Porch

If I lived in a city, I would have a garden on my roof and so would all my neighbors.

 I'd cover mine with terra cotta pots and fill them all with dirt and flowers 

and scented herbs. In one of them, I would plant a lemon tree. My clothesline 

would be the spinning kind with umbrella spokes

 and my clothespins would be wooden. And if it rained on a summer's day 

the rainbow would be double.

...

Noumena

We bend the light 

from a sunlit sea 

and strum its colored strands.

We capture the burst 

of a fallen star 

bounce it betweeen

our upheld palms

and pop open seeds 

to speak like flowers.

We glide through rock

with aeonic seduction

whispering, “multiply”  

and it does
 into tiny grains of sand.

“Don’t tell.” we murmer,

and travel on...

We are so beloved 

the rock willingly 

disassembles
to its
molten core 

and does not tell.

First Reverence

we were before time was drawn into a line

became shadow across the ground 

became something to use as a measure of worth 

became something the good do not waste or squander

we were before image became cloaked in symbol

carved across the face of stone

became something more profound than imagination

became something to adhere to with adulation, without respect

we were before the word

the word, one small sound

the word written, an even tinier transient imprint

found amongst numerous other tracks

upon the banks of the river called life

we are forgotten

for most of our being has been shaped

by those who seek memory, spirit, voice
in the word

as they have written it

those who in the end do not know 

who they are

The Eve of Idiocy

on the eve of idiocy
she saw children pressed between headlines
like dead flowers
loved ones go and never come back
from three wars

on the eve of idiocy
she looked back
upon the road to madness
she'd so much enjoyed
in her youth

on the eve of idiocy
the moon
eclipsed

.......

Ever A Child In This Garden

I was born in this garden

within its secret ways

amongst those who grow here rootless

and blooms that go unseen.

This garden's lapped by waters.

Its gateway is the sky.

And this garden always travels

by way of the sun

encircled by the moon.

I can play in this garden,

 grow gardens of my own.

I have only to remember

I am one of countless born here,

I am not an only child.

This garden is around me

everywhere I am and 

even when I fly I travel

in this garden, Earth's garden

by way of the sun

encircled by the moon.

.......