busy
and the days grab me away
from the paying attention
to that color, that lilt,
that perfect light
one breath
one moment
take it in
notice
this is what matters
this one fleeting second
of pure, silent beauty
remember
.
.
.
and i am still right here
these are the words
that ring through my head
on a hamster-wheel day
when running in place
feels just as exhausting
as covering distance
and all i really
want to do
is fly
.
.
.
spring comes and the birds start singing
and that’s not poetry
it’s truth in a dress
made from hope and hybrid dancing
but we wear it on days
when the swamp
spills over
and
every tiny miracle
understands the word survival
and thrive becomes the promise
of tomorrow
less season
than rebirth
perhaps even
a holy transformation
or simply life
refusing
to go gently
but the birds learned all this
long before Plato
and that
in a word
is
poetry
spring comes and the birds start singing
.
.
.
of your outrage and your joy
your frustration and your ploy
your glad-to-be-alive
or about-to-take-a-dive
the mystery of light
and the hollow of each night
your complaints and your praise
of survival and spent days
the youth that was lost
and the parody of cost
just sing
.
.
.
and are they
one and
the same?
the questions roar
and the answers
take flight
and the trees just
stand there
growing
.
.
.
in the mirror of everything
sky raining down around you
in a pattern of potential
with the fortitude of grace
dripping cold from
squared-off shoulders
as if sunshine
could be ordered and
magnificence
presumed
.
.
.
or if velvet could fly
and the way i watched that hawk
yesterday
brushing a new painting
of sky
as i tried to write a poem
that was not about death
and smiled at simple
impossibility
.
.
.
i’m dizzy all the time
and i’d like to say that’s metaphor,
(and it is, a little)
but i can’t seem to stand
in one place
long enough
to stop the spinning
i thought age
would keep me steady
strengthen roots
chart my course
but the world is cockeyed
and ambitious
and i get closer to antique
every day
rebellion is for youth
(or so i thought)
but here i am
(here we are)
fighting for things
i thought already won
and that’s just the way of things
isn’t it?
nothing is certain
we fool ourselves
into new beginnings and lit
lights and the mirage of
equanimity
but the truth is
it’s a never-ending battle
and i think understanding
that one simple thing
sustains us
i grow old on the banks of a river
running circles
around us all
.
.
.
i think that’s what she said while trying to smile
and i never was one to argue with deliverance
even after tilt-shift became a normal point of view
i wanted to hold you
at least your hand
but paper thin skin
kept rising between us
none of us means to die
even when we want to
trying to smile at her own lost joke
fingers scrabbling at the corners
of a crooked mouth gone dry
like the wind i drank
to forget your sky
.
.
.
you sing me songs of february summer
and i laugh at the absurdity
because
nothing makes sense anymore
and everything
is a tune
from those long ago years
when we believed
in certainty
still
i smile and i dance
at words
spilled from
wist and sunshine
so ripe with yesterday’s
short season of naiveté
when we were young
and you were golden
and i
was just a rose
.
.
.
