What do you have in your pocket?
We have the makings of a southern live oak.
After rummaging through daydreams
Where agape desire sleeps
At the heart of our story, softly evergreen,
Sprawling
Through sunny days and nights so gusty
Storms ruffle our tender leaves.
Yet we let go, twisted and dusty
Left to watch how the light weaves
Our love across a sprawling green.

I missed my chance
at frolicking in the meadow
as a young girl
because I was too melancholy.
I missed a step into the sleek city
with its sparkle and grunge speaking to me
because I was trying to hold on
to something real.
I missed living adventurously
because I was tired of trying
so hard to find a place
where I belonged – so I made one.
I miss the point of a lot of stories
including my own
because I get caught up in details
so the next step may be a doozy.

It’s a cold magic today,
like the kind I remember
during the big freeze in North Carolina
when I was a young girl
and we had more than a week off school
because they’re didn’t know what to do
with all that snow.
The ice weighed down tree branches
and it looked so beautiful
but it was dangerous too.
I remember walking outside, slowly,
like any misstep would find me falling
into another world.
I tasted the fresh snow and the ice
and knew it was something purer than me.
Today is like that.
Cold and a little dangerous.
It’s too bright to be bleak
and it feels like the ground is brittle
but it’s more solid than I am,
with my changeable moods
and wandering thoughts.
I hardly taste fresh snow now
because the world is too warm
and I am so tainted it seems a great divide
but I like to watch it cover everything
as if we can all be fresh again.

In the middle of a silent wood,
wondering at the dreams
of sleeping animals beneath the snow.
Being as still as possible
with breath being the only sound.
Once in awhile, a small chirp
and a light flutter of faraway wings.
Awe fills this ordinary day
when heavy, weary feet pause
to listen to nothing.
Even the waters have hushed
in reverence to winter’s chill.

It’s messy but should be simple.
I can’t say when it began
or why. I sort of know how.
We both know what it is.

But I don’t question some things.
That comes from experience
and finding knowing less can be better.
It allows more room for magic.

I will read you a poem I like soon
and I wonder if you’ll be able to hear
how I feel between words
that are not mine.

This is as simple as the night fractal,
when moonlight ruffles a sleepy tree
or morning sun nudges a furled fern.
And it sounds like a groaning cello.