What historic shadows do we live with?
What bricked, mortared, and hole-riddled, but still beating heart will we keep saying suffices?
What love? What?
This battered banner
These stars
Ready now, to tell true stories
Able, finally
To let go
To grow

What historic shadows do we live with?
What bricked, mortared, and hole-riddled, but still beating heart will we keep saying suffices?
What love? What?
This battered banner
These stars
Ready now, to tell true stories
Able, finally
To let go
To grow
I have been to lavender fields on what you might call
“A great day.”
Oh that the flowers would have told me,
“Love buds not with him — come fast away!”
He’ll not pray that you sit
He’ll not fight the good fight
He’ll not be by your side ‘til the end
You’re the bride and the groom
You’re your own epic bloom
You’re your bravest and loving best friend
Make you move mountains
Love me like a big-leaguer
Make you run not walk
Glad to notice
Remnants of
My morning coffee
Dare to see your feet
Marvel at their tender steps
Braving steepest hills
Wondering, wandering, white-cotton boy
How many teeth did you see
As you made your way through
The waves of this World
Did water give respite to thee
Without wind or sail or even an oar
To propel your dreams onward to land
Did you bear your teeth only
At darkness and fear
And when others sought help, gave your hand
My feet finally rooted
I dare to the window to watch
The funny ol’ man who wanders with a triangular kind of walk, steady though
I listen faithfully for his footsteps, just because
Just because he almost never makes a sound otherwise
Except that he talks to the sunrise
And I’ll hear him again later when I sit for breakfast
Afternoons, while I’m in the yard, there’s the clickety-clack of his feet heading home
Amusingly, and not often enough, he shouts random thoughts to the flowers, who he seems to love so well
Once, at breakfast, I got brave
I asked whether he was in need
I whispered actually, but he heard, then did at once oblige and set a spell
Now, at night, he knocks
I wake to talk, but he hides
Funny ol’ man