both sides of a journey

I watched the River through your eyes,

Counted clouds in ripples and curls,

And the gentle face of the ageless flow

Gurgles like the voice of a friend.

Like any winter day

the barges move coal, the bridge

touches both sides of a journey, but today

the waters reach out in supple fingers, as if

to calm the restless heart 

that carries longing in each step.

Breath is satisfying and whispers

puff into vapors; they cloud the eyes

for only the moment allowed,

to see a reflection…of love.

softness of words

We need not celebrate the self,

but find that it has a wondrous dimension,

to create, and recreate- become a feeling,

a consciousness immersed in something of itself.

It is as close as we can come to touching, 

when we agree to be within a feeling...

We cease to be an insular entity

when the inner creativity, builds 

a fortress  comes from a bubble of air

We stand, as thought beings

woman and man but far less than

the rift between seen and unseen.

No need of any other sense to know

the wanting turns to stillness,

the ache finds its balm, and in

the depths of wonder, there is wonder still

of the reach of some dearest eyes

The spirit vines like life to sun

lifted on wings define the winds;

 float upon the softness of words

that stay and fold into memory, that we

were just...this way

Caesura

There in the space between

a touch and wanting, in lights of night sky,

over shoulder a search for stars and wonders,

somehow finds a higher use.

When candle hiss and kiss coincide,

an occult of flesh and will,

within a moon-made shadow

amidst invented songs from

near still birds and breezy leaves,

we make a slow, slow dance, and

dawn... retreats from view

delta of a smile

I softly sang to you  

and gently washed your hair

filled the air with warm whispers

and closed your eyes with touches

of soft wet lips to skin

and each water rope and braid 

became a wish...to stay, this way

I pause to take in the reflection

of things we try to say, the calm wonder

that beauty within rises to the skin

and I watch and merge into the spray

listen to falling flow as if a summer rain

and my fingertips wander, and mind follows

across curve of chin into the delta of a smile

where a seed of love...has taken root

morning whisper

Five AM cruising empty streets

a neon sign says gas is $3.09

frost begins to clear windows

as last night’s snow lifts from the hood

like a rising voice of wind.

Speed increases although one does not feel

motion-up so much as slowing down

for the color red overhead,

and possibility of 18-wheelers’

cranky starts and uncontrollable stops.

In the quiet of mind

that rises above the hum and drum,

there is a thought- held like sugar

under my tongue- of one

whose sweetness I consider

a delicacy of my time

I think of a gift ...a greatness

amidst this momentary pause called life,

and it is the smile that ends on lips

of whispers which began in my heart.

coals...

after loving,
so empty and so full,
we pour into each other.

I do not know why it feels so
but the moment we cannot save
somehow lasts, stays on

left in my thoughts, a warming glow
like the coals of the last fire
in wait for the next...

fragment no. 715

Such glimmered web we weave
when we pry beneath the eave
window's glance by wicked chance
shed light upon the inner entity

for in all there is an angel's rise
and fall to storied depths we seek
when mind unbridled in stampede
thunders through --all that we can do

is hold to the power of flame for we
are filaments of passion now...and  yet to be.

a butterfly flight

An occasion of angels 

rests in warm thoughts 

when time reckons able 

we fall in to flight, as naught 

can stir the wish to ever be so 

held in a dream as love can do.

 

The mind makes a butterfly flight 

on edge of wind and cusp of light

the rhyme and reason is simply seen 

to taste the warmth of flower streams 

in air defined by fluttered sight, until 

follow whispers, to take our fill 

of all the heart can give,

of all the life, living can live.

only...

a time  of absolution
a drink made holy, to wash away
hints of sin, unkempt, mess-sided moments
and the need for forgiveness

men are not like God
She is eternal but men
have longer memories of things that hurt
except...forgiveness

There was a small part of a day,
something I'd started to say
in a way of tenderness, a moment given over
to feelings;  It was a thing like love,
 a moment like a bubble.
It held all the air I could have.

It rose within me
like something trapped in the sea
could not stay in deep light-less blue

There was a noise, some vague emptiness;
a distraction in the moment of my words
and they fell,  slowly, slowly
 like a dying leaf in the wind
fell, a whirly-seed shell with all of the
air I could have, all the love only I could give
fell
unseen, unnoticed  except by...only

a timeless scribble

How is it that love comes
like waves and tides
rising because of the glory of the moon
and the waves
timeless scribbles of moving water
etched for only an indelible moment.

How is that that love rises like a fever,
simmers in silence, and quells
when she wanders...when distance admits
coolness.

How is it Love
we can cling to tenderness and yet
turn so quickly away to follow the flight
of a dancing butterfly; and

how is it Love--
that goodbye lingers wet on the lips
when the last evening breeze left
its dry kiss...so long ago

quiet fire

calm waters keep our dreams 
ignite them with the evening sun 
spreads quiet fire 'neath the waves 
kisses the shores again and again 
wet touches to remind, 

she is of the sea

One day 
fates will ask for proof of angels
I will hold such a moment as this 
when I reached for you with my heart 
and even the seas grew still...

the night began to glow anew
a moon of fire, for the heat
of desire also fills bent wings
of prayers and wishes

part of the sea

Aloft in the sea, float as if flight
for the lightness of splendid air
is woven in the waters;

we reach with might and thought
for a light within us is the guide.
We glide closed eyed
upon faith in what we feel.

There is no indifference
to the caress of waves and swirl, for
we are part of the sea
and it keeps us in its arms.

The fear of falling is lost
upon billows that urge us onward
that remind that we are forever
in the peace we make...
in the enduring powers of tide and flow.
We are forever in the present
the past is the wake behind our fluttered feet;
the whirled curls after spent pulls of arms.

They pass to send us onward,
into moments reached for,
breath yet on our lips, and
love yet to be lived...

muse

You inspire

with slow movement of lips
a butterfly flight I see in your eyes;
in the way you look at me

to see far more than I imagine...Inspire
with fires in your urgent whispers
with loving that thrills my skin

Yes, You in ways

I can sometimes only feel in a place within
inspire...like the fold of Heavens in a setting sun
or the roll of stars to the glow of the Moon
Feel You, 

flowing into my thoughts...like breathing

winter's song

Beneath fresh snow

clean covers for forgotten tasks

a rest for thought as I decipher

a panic of birds for bread.

As a wind-blown this or that

makes lines like Picasso;

draws-in the eye then passions see:

a curve like a woman’s hip,

a vagrant stick paints

the ridge of  her lip. I  smile
as fluttered leaf shadows

make a butterfly like passion eyes;

lifts now and swirls among a crystal flurry.

Winter is a song of windy cedars

lean and brush, then hush for tympany

of rolling trash cans(--)within in

emptiness whispered words of love(--)

all rise to my eyes- a squint and blur

glad for chill sun, stillness between

gusts; pauses that uncurl and fill with

wishes for warm touches…

man's own magic.

I confess to a sin of dreams
where freedom finds its will
like winds that fill sails
and take us where we'd might never be.

A sin of wishes, a luxury of imaginings
but a place where we weave
a tapestry of tomorrows
by strength of will, force majeure 
of the spirit; we rely upon nothing more
than breath and time, yet create
what has not been...a moment
in which to dwell, a spell
man's own magic.

Confess to a sin of excess
for I am blessed with you.

a more tender Moon

she was a flower

neath a too distant sun

as if she were born to a warmer place

pale petals adored the slanted sky

made dreams in the still of night

and dreams made motile roots

folded space in upon time

the vast round world shrunk into

a whirl in winds of change

and the fullness of day

soaked into skin, salt air

aromas that were once so far away

lifted her senses to their heights

she was once- and again- a flower

neath a too distant sun, but now

had felt the side once imagined

echoes of seas and busy seasons

fill the spaces she has made

in loving heart- contained

in wishes planted like seeds

in whispers to a more tender Moon, in

passion flares, rendered tenderly

in butterfly flights of her eyes