nobody notices
what they don’t want to see
and the feelings well up
threatening to spill messily

a lot of feelings at my edges
are awaiting safe places
like an Italian abbey
or a grotto with lots of cheese

I will eat a salad and lay down,
willfully avoiding prayers of death
feeling all aches that come on Tuesdays

there is little hope but
Wednesdays are unpredictable;
I will imagine us nestled in the hills

I don’t know how it happened.
I was called golden and felt soft
but after awhile, the hits came harder
and I felt leaden and heavy.
Big ideas ruled when I was younger,
-like heaven and the circus and flight-
whereas now I see the value in
what I can touch and see and hear,
how a few bites of bread and a song can be
enough. More than enough when shared.
I don’t remember laughing much
when my brain got in the way
for far too long
but my smile now is pure and unfiltered
as I have learned transience of things;
not everything is a trial or conspiracy
but there are days where joy is hard-won.
Then, it was how grand the sky;
now: how utterly grand the sky!

two birds locked in embrace
hurtling toward the water,
fresh from a bright and promising sky
to a rippling dark place

just for a moment

because that’s all the time we have,
a moment of bliss, a moment
of terror, of hilarity, of grief
before hurtling somewhere else

because we have just enough time

to notice the change in air,
in color, in how it feels to be close
to someone and part of something
before the next moment steals our breath

We are pulled like salt-water taffy
from the sky
across a big parking lot

a few people below say,
“what a nice cloud shape-is that a condor?”

They don’t hear the sub-rhythms
that drive our currents, nor do they know
why we smile at our laptops intermittently.

The unknown is a bubble of joy
growing in a still pond, full of light and music

sort of like fireworks only we can see,
making the lily pads quiver

to music only we can hear.

Sleepy gauzy warm late spring afternoon,
when boundaries fade
between our world and dreams.
That’s where the latest episode began.

There are diamond shapes when I blink
and muppets when I open a closet.
The music is from 1944 and flight
into the stratosphere is strictly sci-fi.

A heron soars across the ceiling
which is really a sky but I don’t quite see
the difference between in and out.
That’s a made-up principle, I think.

I was faced with four generations
of poetic larceny, with a mirror to
forest succession, all moss and mushroom
with no fairy tale in sight.

Another morning of fog lasts too long
except for the moments with him
which rush by like wildflowers
through a car window.

There will be a quiet celebration,
one of whispered thanks and promise.
I’d like to be fully awake first
but I’m not sure that’s a state for me.

Maybe the best gifts are the moments
inside bookstores, where thousands
of ideas float about and time is
a silly construct.

Muddled mornings and alt afternoons
with birds of prey high overhead
and rocks slowly softening
back to dust below.

Today is open and quiet
with no promises or need for definition.
Today is picking up threads
to continue weaving a dragon tapestry.