I’m done in by the snow The blistery reality Of ten degrees below. In frigid cold I burn My hands have lost to arctic frost My toes are a concern When in the biting wind The bus is late Passengers wait Biding the biting wind And oh the clouds of breath Upon my lips When the wind whips The sun to sudden death. Be careful watch for ice They laid rock salt On the asphalt But I have fallen twice.

She said, “It looks like we’re getting’ some rain ‘This afternoon. I feel it in my knees.” First thing I notice walking from the train Is a pink dogwood blowing in the breeze The clump of hens and chicks my father had. I notice that the lights are on outside “Poor Leslie’s dementia is getting bad, ‘I loved him so much.” How rarely she cried “I kept my girlish figure. You too right?’ ‘I like to have a slice of it at night. ‘My friend it was so sweet of you to come.”

Love is patient although not always wise Allowing her to dance in fields of red A wife he loves too often to chastise Afraid to lose her in the flower bed. He gives her freedom as she combs her hair Offering the thing she won’t take from him He stops himself after and doesn’t dare She will return after an interim Though not alone and not before the bloom Of rose petals, too succulent to wilt. He sees them scattered all about her room And they are boldly laid upon her quilt.

He leans against the rail “God give me strength.” Easing his leg up to the sinking stair His wife criticizing the man at length Keeping to herself the love she could share But she is bored with nothing else to do And does little but boss the man about By pressing on him with a thing or two That she could do herself or do without.

A cave was cut into the redwood tree Sealed with the residue of ash and tar The blackened bark, the fire-stricken scar A forest collapsed into poverty Massive tree trunks laid out on burning ground Tall evergreens that God nor man could save The giants cast upon each other’s grave When no one could hear the ear-splitting sound Or feel the ground rumble where living roots Survived, in the deep bedrock of the earth To rise from ruin, the redwood’s rebirth As saplings awaken, fa

Abe Lincoln had a memory of steel He said so placing a note in his hat Beside his great capacity to feel No less for a slave than aristocrat. A human man, let words say nothing more A friend, a father, devoted mentor Who lost a few battles but won the war. In his deep anguish he saw a new day With all against him he saw a new day Beloved because he saw a new day Until the long winter yielded to spring A time of joy, too soon a time to grieve A promise filled and then a time t

She puts her faith in nature’s call to preach Grasping the child forever within reach Cradling her who hasn’t really grown Although she’s had no children of her own Mistrustful of the life outside the wall Where no one can say they know her at all Or know about her mystic reveries Or know her creed, her ideologies. She is no stranger to mortality Or afterlife where she will wander free. It isn’t that each day is incomplete The mornings greeting her are still as sweet.

Shadows breathe rapidly under the light Stunned, rubbing their eyes as the horizon Lifts its head, curls of smoke clinging in fright, Translucently, remnants of black nylon Tucked in corners, whispers of secrecy dasping and not buried, the thin vaporsd Retreating from sadness no more to be Apparitions painting the corridors.

You did not like to talk about the war But I have seen the anguish in your eyes The reflex of your hand touching the scar. How many times must one apologize? Knowing it was a question not to ask But quietly the answer carved your brow The one you knew but carried on somehow With a great purpose that you took to task Terrible pain inside the depth of you Which forged your kindness and humanity. Alone you return to that distant view Where no medal will ever set you free.

Mother, sister, peas in a pod Forgive me if I find it odd Your incestuous liaison Each of you play the other’s pawn Though you have set a private pact We know your secret as a fact You smile widely when you lie Shame on you both, truth meets the eye. Carefully you pull down the blinds Together straightening your spines Waited upon by foot and hand Preferring hot, rejecting bland Self-satisfied, contemptuous Not common like the rest of us.dds

I dream of spiders crawling on the bed As they climb over me to spin their thread Biting my arms and legs with pin-prick knives They make up in numbers for their short lives. My eyes widen with fear but I don’t scream Hundreds of nights before I’ve had this dream When I believed the spiders to be real And so it really isn’t a big deal They will return tomorrow when I sleep. I count spiders like some people count sheep.

Stay with me for a while, the night will close Its doors after we enter them, the moon Illuminates our footsteps, but suppose We walk beside the sea singing a song With words we do not remember, and laugh Through our pauses, the water at our knees With nowhere better to go, so we walk We walk beyond the night to see the sun The best of friends, a summer love that brings Our hearts closer, just as the seagull brings Fresh fish to its next with the memory Of barnacles clinging,

At the same time both proud and plain And fashioned from worlds far away Unlike the women who are vain And at beauty can only play. The way most could not she saw things For what they were and did not hide The sadness that her wisdom brings But turned away the times she cried.

Lost in thought when the train passes my stop I hear a voice “This is the end of the line ‘Last stop Harlem where the sun does not shine.” Doors open to a threatening backdrop Each sound has an echo. My heels hammer The pavement, sometimes I forget to breathe Aware of night animals, monsters that teethe On witless waifs like me for their supper. I am nowhere that I have been before The subway exit quiet as a gun Street intersection lights flash for no one Graffiti slapped on

I have been lost before The smoky corridor And the ghost-eerie glen My way missing again No open gate or gap A complicated map No harbinger to lead No landmark there to read The compass needle quit When I had need for it Advancing back and forth Without a south or north.

At low tide the green scarves of seaweed Have adorned a necklace of broken shells A shawl of glistening wells where waves creep Iridescent like opals by the reeds. I am safe here, a lullaby of bells Where rusted chains are ringing in the deep Blue shafts of the ocean. I need… I need Forgiveness for the shame of my farewells To be at home again, but if I leap To the red moon, I will bleed… I will bleed Red rain. This is my secret. Do not tell Or I will wake you when you are

She poses for a silhouette Alas but not a daguerreotype A heart beset, a soul too ripe Her palette dabbed with shades of mirth Her spirit too alive to tame A tint of earth, a spark of flame A pool of azure for her eyes Her lips the rose of cabernet Her hair flying on ebon spray.

He puts his talent to a lonely skill Working at what never comes easily Truth answers only when his heart is still A hunter who must set the hunted free. The old soul has inhabited the night Resting awhile but not to fall asleep He leans forward to touch a stream of light And labors only when the cost is steep. On his palm the lines speaking of age Say nothing of what he has given life What he was earned sometimes without a wage With great precision, sober with a knife Exacti

I wonder where the echo ends Down tunnels or on mountaintops Or in a cavern where sound bends Or at the moment when time stops. The echo mocks me like a fool Repeating phrases I may make Like children used to do in school Before my rattled heart would break. It bounces briefly on the air Or skips like stones across a stream And softer, hardly being there It grows until it loses steam.

To lose a child to fever Too heartbroken to leave her Forever hear her soul cry “How can heaven let me die?” When nothing was done for her The doctor gave an order But father tightened his fist A Christian Scientist Letting her illness squander The light that was within her By finding worthless potions Clinging to foolish notions Desperate that she was failing Still haunted by her wailing God proved only a liar Now nothing soothes the fire Welcoming the chastiser Though he is