missing home...

Unfolding like new leaves in springtime sun
a dream begun in a smile, the familiar-
a view down Main Street in my little town.

Pacing past store windows, glass panels chronicle
my reach to the sun and the way my eyes
took on the wisdom of shade-dark circles.
Beneath a determined brow, a slanted sun
spring begun in the early walks and wondering

A view, the tall building where mother lived
defiant happiness, turning the world's indifference
into a patient golden glow...like this springtime sun
painting my portrait on lower Main.
Below Market and Broadway, another tower
where my sister held court
in a lively flow of rumor and near chance,
together, a lofty pair of deep and doubtless faiths.

The smile in the dreamy view
wrinkled anew as I dream-stepped
across a wide expanse of time, relaxed in expectation
the touch of love; and then, as if at shimmers end,
the vision took to sudden flight.
with so many still moments of knowing
the warmth of care and the shared ways
feelings we'd made into a cocoon of eruptive life.

They are not there any longer
neither together nor separately there,
gone, and the tall buildings
are just that, stoney anthills,
No longer the seats of love
no longer ...home

Mãe e sussurros ( Mother and whispers)

A vivid wander in the apse,  

an ancient cathedral breathes incense.

The moaned prayers for so many dead

re-echo and sound old pain anew.

How can we forget for a moment;

how does laughter yet rise from

the fullness of our quaking sides?

When the spirit-calls of emptiness--

of cloaked leavings, hidden 

in the silent roar of  grief--

rises like a quick flood in over-soaked ground.

It is always there, the want for those few

we miss in so many times.

Some scars close without healing

for we remember the deep rent and tear.

It phantoms to persist and exist

when we cannot do anything more

than close the sting in the eyes