Lofty

Posted on by


I remember temperatures
Made me rise to you
Every opportunity
I leaned in to melt
Never swept the sun away
I bid it come closer
That I would rain down
Begged it then to burn me
Condense and then confine me
Maybe we were clouded
But I couldn’t care
I wanted to be near you
In your lofty air

Things With Strings

Posted on by

See that small farm right there
See those young and old kids

Mine and his

Toys and mischief, solemnity and instruments strewn about
All things with strings — what heaven these things

Animals, there’s no choice

Alpacas, needing to wake us at dawn but, agreeable, settle in for the night before our dinnertime

Ebony dogs and snowy white chickens
No cows, but a cowboy

Keeps his white hat far back in our closet on a shelf and never puts my heart on a shelf

Comes home from work on time and Saturdays are his and mine

We get greasy together under the cover of some good old American steel

In the polebarn back there, muscle-bound memories we rebuild

Sundays are God’s, he says — how he leads the way, putting all striving aside for the day

On his knees each night in prayer

No need to prove himself to me ever again since he put me on a pedestal there in his heart of gold

Our house on a hill, our kids and our farm

His eyes and his time and his life

His gifts to me, Amen and Amen

Unilateral

Posted on by

If you haven’t lost the love of your life
In the late Summertime

As a jewel-toned magic carpet pulled
From ‘neath your soaring heart

As your jump rope stolen
Whilst you sang from the deep

Then you cannot have been my best friend
In this, our late lifetime

In the Echinacea

Posted on by

A Cardinal, spying from the pow’r lines by my kitchen window, acts tempestuously

As if he cannot resist me

Truth be told, I’m fond of him, too

Remarkable as he is — less a vivid red than most, and volume missing in the tufts of his shaggy cone

I know the migration he’s been through, and he needs that

Unafraid to ask, I say, “What is it you want?”

His response…be still, my heart!

I won’t betray his confidence, but we see eye-to-eye

It’s the reason he finds himself landing in my backyard peach tree at every possible opportunity

Poking around in the Echinacea, for calm

Glad I give him refuge, I leave open the door

Talking with him like this, leaves me wanting more

Swipe Left

Posted on by

Right this

Take us back to the shallow meeting place
To before the gravity of what was never a simple baseball game

Delete January
My I Love You
Your I Do Love You Too

Swipe left on me
Be unaccountable, actually

Take us to before November
To when we were less than digital

To when I was not here alone in your deep

Future Selves

Posted on by

Strung, as crystalline beads
On a fine gold thread
Our days
One by one together
We charted a more kind pattern
Planned

Colors, something beautiful
All our own
To be complete
Tied with an unbreakable knot
This time
Worn boldly and proud

But for the masked marauder
Disguised as difficult conversation
Arriving in broad daylight
Ripping this treasure from us
A new family heirloom
We’d have created

Webster Defined

Posted on by

I know this night

Allow me to define

Temperature just right
Songbirds dancing in the dusk
A perfect ambiance

I know this night well, I say!

Yet still unready to admit
The aloneness of it
The how I see clearly
The what that she has that I should have

Trepidation as stars begin their show
Is all the what that I have

My big, demure eyes
My young, smooth skin
I’d trade her for her treasure
Then maybe in the mirror see
Somebody you love