between the night
and light of day,
the truth sometimes
appears in the same
shadows that harbor
our deepest terrors.
at dawn we awake
with a sense of wonder,
of worlds unvisited
yet somehow known.
Tag: poetry
Eldon, Missouri
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Clear cold nights remind me
of the Ozarks, of looking
through the leafless trees
standing like skeletons
who shield the silent stars.
Tonight the branches cradle
the moon in a ribcage,
and I wonder how this light
shines after so many years.
Breathe
Under the winter sky I stand,
my lungs burn from the frigid air.
Silence is welcome since words fade
quicker than the puffs of breath
measuring my mounting loss.
This ramshackle soul may be built
for eternity, but the finite still
crushes these bones to dust,
freeing the soul to finally fly.
Processing
Some days the words are slow to form,
and my mind is as empty as the lines
on the waiting pages. Hours pass
before I notice the soft tapping of sleet
against the window, reminding me
of the time I ran across the sidewalk
at grandma’s house, and my foot slipped
on the ice. I hovered parallel to the ground
before crashing hard upon my back.
For a moment I could not catch my breath,
and I blinked in wonder when the stars
watched me gasp for the freezing air.
despairing
we fill our days
wrestling with words
since we do not agree
on the meaning
of love. so how
can we love each other?
do we continue
sharing sacred
space where all
may stand in silence?
how can we pray,
side by side, and peek
from almost closed eyes
to keep watch
over our neighbor?
Spectrum
The trail’s end winds tightly
down a ledge that opens
to a fading western sky.
Light becomes as colored
here as the early dawn
when small birds begin to call.
But now hushed cool air clips
at my skin. Wild flowers
flicker and watch the trees
write their stories in the wind.
sight
sometimes i see him
even though they say
he is invisible i see
him in the waiting
in the long desperate times
of darkness when things
unseen are so close
that i cannot touch them
unless i step away
Autumn
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I began my morning walk
not knowing when I’d return.
I had time, or rather,
time had me by the hand
and led me somewhere
I had not been. A field
with wild grass stretched
to every horizon except
for one tree whose leaves
were the colors of dusk.
I stayed a while past lunch,
my pockets full of things
I thought I had lost.
Fragmented
My burdens are invisible,
internal struggles, depression
whose weight grows each year.
It hasn’t always been this way.
Not like this fading tide recedes
into the deep with wreckage spinning
underneath the constant waves.
* * *
I’m doing better now than I was when I wrote this poem. If you are dealing (or have dealt) with depression, there can come a day when the waves are calmer and the storm subsides.
Contemplation
I return more for the place
than the lessons spoken there.
The silence after the words,
the breath taken and released.
The reminder of beginnings
and ends, the spaces we take,
the lives we shape. The words
are pointers, signposts, maps.
The living is in between.
Awaiting the Images 