breezes
come and go
remember dwellers
past and future

Clouds hovering over like the dark of night
with raging storms and powerful thunder.
The violent lightning striking and killing
in this unknown realm.  Will we ever again
see a rainbow with the sun shining upon us.

Santiago wasn’t to be touched

                 so            his life might be in
danger.

Ever put your life in another man’s
hands, ask him to put his life in
yours?

                                           Follow
       or           die.

                                         the truth:

sometimes men

        live in a world that has
walls. And those walls have to be
guarded,

              a              responsibility
      you can              fathom. You weep
for Santiago

                   and

         deep down, in places you don’t talk
about,               you want
             you need

a man                                         under the
blanket,

                      goddamn right.

But you fucked          the wrong

                             boy,

you hear me?

(An erasure of a speech near the end of the screenplay for “A Few Good Men” by Aaron Sorkin. You can read the original text at https://imsdb.com/scripts/A-Few-Good-Men.html.)

Grouchy with over-fertile spring
and the breakdown of both machines
I lament the Age of the American Lawn

What is this collective obsession 
with postcard front-yards?

Let dandelions flourish, let old men
laze about reading and yawning to the end,

let the range of nature be not in single blades
but in whole fields of wildest green.

Bring in goats or wild horses from the steppes,
let feral pigs snout up the roots of fescue,

for despite what’s printed on some courthouse deed
this weedy land will never be my rightful claim

Descriptive language,
exaggerated adjectives,
all come up short
for the emotions I feel.

Putting pen to paper
isn’t working,
it is not enough
to try and explain
my feelings.

After all this time,
brewing quietly,
and settling beneath my ribs,
becoming part of me.

Perhaps
distance and time
will give me a new perspective.
Distance and time
can shift
a point of view.

So I return
to the lake,
surrounded
by stone and pine.
The water,
cold but clear,
blue and green.

For a moment,
the chaos quiets.
For a moment,
I can almost believe
healing will be simple.
That time and distance are enough.

But the lake
cannot carry the grief for me.
The wind
cannot scatter it.
The waves
cannot wash it away.

They soften the ache,
but they do not erase it.

Because even now,
when the water is calm
and the sky is clear,
I find myself thinking of you.

Distance and time
may offer perspective,
but they will not diminish
my feelings toward you.

Nothing can do that.
Not the years between us.
Not the miles.

Not even the version of myself
that rose,
like a phoenix,
from the ashes
and learned how to live
without you.

Camomile Tea and a Book

On the rare occasion when one realizes they have nothing to do
grab a favorite tea and a book, the type of both are up to you

Camomile and anything cozy, both bring such me delight
A comfy spot, a nice warm throw and a calming candle to light

I close my eyes and smell my tea the scent so fragrant and sweet
I take the first sip, feel the warmth of the mug and in that book I am ready to retreat

I am immediately swept away to a place where there are books on every shelf
It doesn take long before I realize its a magical bookstore owned by an elf

I meet so many new friends and we must find an old ancient flower
The adventure exciting and we realize when we are working together, there lies our power

We make it back safely and the adventure was great
some found love. others themselves and its starting to get late

Its time for goodbyes but we will  meet again soon
I have the second book and nothing to do again tomorrow around noon.

I won’t lie, it hurt, that “knife 
of never letting go,” but I filled my lungs
with resolve and made the first cut, 

carving the smallest piece 
from that tender organ 
with gentleness and precision

as it pounded its agreement–
this is a suitable offering
to the land that gave us ourselves.

I refused to use a shovel
to move the dirt and stone.
Only hands plunged into the earth

could prepare a proper plot
in which to sink this sliver of
glad muscle, tissue, and nerves.

I dug and dug, the dirt
driven beneath my nails 
with every scrape and pull of earth,

until I was satisfied and settled 
that yielding fragment among the soil, 
dense with minerals and time.

I felt the pang immediately–the steady,
silent sting of a heart split between
where it has been and where it is going.

It has never fully gone away–
like the ache of a phantom limb. 
Which was the point to begin with.

Today is my last day at my current job
I could go in with the attitude “I am done”
or I could go in thinking “I want to accomplish
all that I can accomplish today”
I know which one I choose, because
I make the same choice every day
and make each day a productive day,
while showing kindness to others in the process

One by one
Slowly at first
A few drops at a time
Then, a downpour

One by one
Slowly at first 
A few drops at a time
Then, a downpour

Is it the same?
Does God feel pain?
When He lets in rain?

Metal in my nose