What of the labors we never see,
The beginnings of things buried in the cold ground
Determined to break free?
An idea born of eternal fire
Sprung from a well more deep and true
Than anything around ourselves
That flame which we hide underneath
Buried in the snow and gray and heaviness
Of the dark half of the year
Will grow
With the lightening of the days
The stretching of the suns rays and the color returning to the sky
And our faces
If we are brave enough to make it.
An Up North summer is a fragile thing.
Not like these mountains in their majesty,
Mighty bedrocks of respect,
Formidable, they command a salute to
Life Neverchanging.
A Up North summer bends and whispers in my ear
Blessing my cheek with the kiss of innocence.
Cherry blooms and lilacs dance the air
Gone before I can think to keep them for myself.
The sweet smell of birches nestles around me
Offering a gift:
A glimpse
of heaven.
And the water – the holy lake
Envelopes in its cool, soft embrace,
Shimmering with love
Shivers in the sun
Yet the nip of the North Wind lingers…
Quietly foreboding, it prickles
Reminding
That this will all perish into desolation
Waxen,
and so cold.
I stand alone at the foothills of assurity
Lake-lit eyes, birch-blown hair
Aching in the dusk.
A trinity of petals
With pearls in creamy silk
Perch gently with their fellows
And gossip with their ilk.
We walk the Earth in gamut:
Each different; all the same
And planets soar with planets
In the vastness of your Name.
A single stroke of sunlight
Caresses from the sky.
And globes of pearls and petals
Brush my arm as I pass by.
Clouds set down for us on the invisible surface of the sky.
The wisps of their tops as if our great God had held them gently and placed them.
A tendril above each giggled
as it floated away from the grip of her Creator.
Sitting calmly on the great blue salver,
with the tiniest breath of effervescent guile in her smile
A storm looms.
A curtain of indigo rushes forward,
Its ceiling stretching aching fingers toward me.
I turn, I walk the other way.
Wind trembles in my heart like anger.
Should I stand a face it,
branches and sand whipping me
as others shake their heads?
Better to duck and hurry forth.
So practical, upright.
Safe.
What would the rain wash away?
Snatching branches from trunks,
Ripping flowers’ petals from their faces.
I clutch tight to my mask.
Preserved, it consumes my days
As the truth slinks ever inward.
Would this storm tear through the feigning
Leaving my veracity exposed?
If this storm consumes me – I refuse to run away
I will be forced to face me
Shrouded in a veil of rain.
Pretty, and delightful as she sits
and soft, she waltzes with the wind
On the hillside Sweet Pea lives,
Fragrant petals to greet.
They smile for the pleasure she brings
Before they rush to heavier things
And wonder, briefly, about a ring
Or cutting her down to keep.
Rust-tinged shrapnel weaves along
Poison in its shiny claws
Despite these dangers she stands strong,
Purple and pink and sweet.
Freedom is a warm muzzle.
The brush of grass on your shin
Tickles the forgotten embers of your wild heart.
Work-weary hands clasp the reins
Setting down service, soothing,
For a second –
A chance to run in tandem
Turbulent and untamed
With the wind.
I am the man upon the throne and words will never hurt me.
Sticks and stones make up my bones
I scream through the inertia.
The waves will lap; I think clap for my barbaric yawp
When in fact they smack the sap
As I turn into slop.
The devil’s elbow is a tricky run:
One look back and I’ve forgotten where I am.
My leg twists and jams in the snow
As I try to unearth my family.
Have they gone?
They’re waiting at the bottom
I ascend and try again
Over and over to make it straight.
How it should be.
How it was.
Devil’s Elbow will wrench relentless
As people come and go.
To expect to look back is a danger
As deceptive as the snow.
Better plant feet and look forward,
Flakes dusting at my tears
For new can be cherished also
Like all those remembered years.
The hill is still a mountain,
The Lake a baptismal font
The people who love me wait at the base
Or in clouds, my confidant.
Death and Decay
Twin millstones
Float gracefully through the air
Landing on the pavement,
They mingle with the damp
And stick to the heel of my polished boot
With the paste of waste upon them.
As I try to rise and raise my eyes,
Walk forward, upright, they surprise.
Their jewel-toned veined beauty lies
Within their yearly suicide.
She caned past my humble hearth
Paper bag of Northern Spy and a smile twinkling on her face
Delicate, shapely fingernails and the scent of woolen sweaters
and three-day-old hair.
Diminutive but for her imagination.
I took the load, strong and polite and independent.
We got to work.
She talked of her own mother,
How she could slice the apples paper-thin,
Make a million tiny veils.
Gentle admonishments for my quick thickness.
We must stir together the sugar and the cinnamon first,
So that the fruit, drawn and quartered by our merciless hands
Shall have a sweet place to land
Before the wounds we inflict turn to rot.
I gesture to my hard chair with a dishcloth
She rests while I tidy
The masks that we have peeled away.
The heart, ever at the core
With her seeds ready to pass on.