I tried singing
but the moon
took it away
to rest on a night wing,
and that’s where
the best dreams
will have to go.

A single, singular leaf
swirling against sunlight
into meditation beyond a blue day
brings her to an edge – forgotten
but not misplaced as she had thought,
straying on purpose while awake.

The trick, she knows, when awake
is to free-fall like an autumn leaf
without worry, without thought,
welcoming rain just as sunlight.
Hiding in the arbor is not forgotten
climbing, ignoring fresh bruises of this day.

Dreams of night melt into day
as early morning birds scream “awake!”
Terrors of past darkness are best forgotten
like the shedding a tired leaf.
Even as the moon craves sunlight,
she reaches for warm embrace of thought.

Do birds carry any thought
than stretching across the day,
drinking rain, singing praise, bowing to sunlight?
As on wings, her spirit becomes awake.
Does a bird ever long to dance with a leaf,
spinning until time is forgotten?

No child’s dream stays forgotten,
not the glorious, not the darkest thought.
She wishes she could place her hurt on a leaf
and let it wither to feed another day.
The strongest fears while awake
are lost in forest’s dappled sunlight.

She is a branch in sunlight
but with roots and stories forgotten,
nothing to haunt her while awake.
The freedom of such thought
brings yearning for a different day
like an unfurling of joy upon a leaf.

Time is aware of fading sunlight.
As the tree frees a leaf, sorrow is forgotten
and thought becomes hope within a green day.

You think everything I say is lush
and promising today
because it is unseasonably warm
with a wild and heady wind
blowing from the west-
farther west
than we have ever been.

Beware the illusion
of floating roses in moonlight-
my toes firmly grip soil
even as I reach for you;
there is no navigating a spinning moon.

Outside this room,
trembling light
inside determined clouds
fixed on the wrong horizon…

On a silvery beam
sort of hidden
inside a warmth
I don’t understand,
I am held suspended
for a moment
before the tremble
overpowers
and I am tossed
into a strange day
of wakeful sleep
and hungry eyes.

Gathering under the flickering
streetlamp,
a group of seekers
circle an old man, bent
beneath his broken threshold.

I thought the house was vacant
but cracked windows and doors
speak of neglect, not loneliness.

The children seem to want something
and there is some organization
about the scene-
moving so slowly;
almost a still-life.

I drive by slowly
unseen -or at least ignored
having felt like I was here before

but… roofs were thatched,
the earth was mostly untried,
gatherings were inside a stone corral
with fire marking the signs
of gods on earth…

the smell of smoke and soil
hung like a summer tree
laden with fruit

but this was a season of change,
of decay, and what I wanted
-and still want, though roads
are paved and children masked-
is to pluck the fruit and rest in dark.