Nomad

I found out today that I have to move yet again. The nomadic life finds me through time and space. I wonder what kind of nomad I was in past lives.

Violin

She practices violin

Sounds not quite sing songy

Cats are ambivalent of notes

Pacing like the bow 

Scotland

This is not Braveheart’s Scotland

It is the misty filed that she and I walk

Hand in hand on cold winter mornings

The only heat being between our palms 

February 15, 2017

Walking Beneath the Trees

walking beneath the trees

 

the song comes in my head and 

heart twists into an empty shape

fortuitously filling a void

 

the breeze is light on touch

like your voice beside my ear

i can hear fleeting whispers and

mad raucous laughter

 

is it real that you’re in the leaves

is it real that you’re in the clouds 

oh draw me a funny rabbit or cow and

make them hop the moon tonight

 

tonight i sight jupiter and the moon

has a rainbow around it

you’re in the bits of my universe now

forever with me yet beyond touch

you’re in the bits of my reality yet i can

only sense in the lightness of a breath

(april 19, 2016) 

bread and pho

you’ll never get to taste my bread

i’ll never get to use your mixer

just think of the flour fight that might ensue

just think of the cackling of two magpies

i will name a new kind of dough after you

it will have sweetness of dried fruits 

and an over abundance of butter, more butter

we never were shy about fat, you and i

we never believed in limits to our palate

we made others envious of our cuisine

you’ll never eat my pho again

like the time at your parent’s house

we had it stinking of cooking fish sauce

but the kids devoured the food, you smiled

15 february 2015 

a scottish cemetery

in scotland this time of year;

daffodils carpet the cemetery; 

so delicate, swaying gently.

old man’s beard laden the old oaks;

i wandered beneath them on worn paths.

hard to believe i found such tranquility;

hard to accept you are to be in such a place.

incontrovertible that you have left us;

i hope you have found serenity.

it is  eventual the world will hear; i know,

our raucous laughter will sound again, together.

15 february 2015 

parked here

for ingrid

parked here, i sit wondering of you;

two weeks have passed and no word

since you said you’re calling 911.

parked here, sweet crepes and butter

were our morning delight in franz's

since days we could claim youth.

don’t let this be that kind of poem

not yet, not in this way;

so far, those memories

so far, the path still lies ahead.

parked here, i hold a glacier’s tears

millennia have passed, patience, they say

i won’t count future lives until we meet again.

don’t let this be those kinds of words;

people murmur in fear of unknowns

since days we stared at stars.

8 february 2016

mother and i

mother and i,

she tried to be a grower but

didn’t get grandfather’s green thumb;

i did.

i am the grower and

i am the arranger, too;

that is from my father.

i arrange flowers that are words;

words that are images;

it was his gift.

my aunt says it’s apparent.

she says, i’m my father’s son;

my gilded tongue, sometimes forky;

the softened charm that is rarely refused.

not that i share nothing with mother.

mother and i, we can be alike.

we can be removed;

hidden behind the leaves and roses

among the thorns,

too threatening for curious fingers.

i can, not show the softened heart,

keep my shirt sleeves unrolled.

mother and i; we have only one sun

but very different worlds.

lamb

(after Christine Boyka Kluge’s Lamb)

i read a poem about a lamb across the valley,

lost and distant and there was mention

of smoke separating the animal from its viewer.

as i think of it now i imagine myself reflected

in the yellowed worn page of the book;

well handled, well read and perhaps well loved.

i see myself as the lamb turned upside down

on the edge of the paper as if a world inverse

of this more complicated reality outside

of its frail edges. i see myself removed

from myself and wonder of the smoke mentioned

and whether it was me who started the fire;

the fire that would eventually eat up the page

into hungry embers and when the lamb

in the image had burned, would i disappear? 

Haiku

Strangers walking by
Outside the open window
So far from your view

Haiku

All in order now
A crimson sky above me
Another dawn smile

--

Line of cypresses
Gossamer memories fading
So far away now

August 4, 2015

His father's son
With senses like Waterford
And red ruby heart

--

No summer kisses
Beneath the Emerald Isle
She waits patiently

--

Autumn almost here
So distant a time since last
So distant the space

--

August 2, 2015

Kumquat

Kumquat blossoms
Assault my fragile senses
So lovely now parted

Haiku

Tendrils of steam
Bitter on the palate, sweet
Two faces, green tea

Finch on house, fence
Fencing bravely with song
Protecting my heart

Weeping is willow
Washing the faint sorrow
Being across the sea

Pre Dawn

Gentle, birds chirping
Morning dawns my mind stirs
Into scent, green tea

Distance, ocean
Scent of skin on her neck
Lingers, all mine

Contralto singing
Song of recent life echoes
Like tea, all smiles

last night's dal

last night's dal
predawn breakfast
ciabatta cooling

so hard to send
smells in words
across the sea

17 march 2015

Melting

I am falling to you

as unique as anything in

this universe could ever be.

Not as one who loves you

for who and what could

with senses; know you,

and not love you?

Who and what who has

stolen a view of the gentle

tremor of your lips; smiling,

could possibly turn away?

Except in bashfulness like

a child caught staring

at his first encounter of beauty

from across the recess yard.

I am unique.

I am unique because as

a snowflake happens only once;

as it crystallizes into complexity,

for only one; once,

to be gazed upon by your eyes;

your deep green eyes.

I shall have the one journey cast from

an ice cloud and fall, and fall, and fall

as I fall into you.

And after we briefly see each other,

after anticipation;

excitement,

and landing on your delicate nose,

knowing I shall disappear.

Giving you only one sensation;

the only one that I am capable of, then

melt into less than a droplet of water

into your snowy skin.

But I will not disappear from this world;

I will be absorbed into your being;

become part of you. And

so fleeting as the moment was;

I am become part of you which

is where I have waited my entire

existence for;
it is, where I belong.

(10 March, 2015)

the horse and the rider

This was written with no edits as part of an archetypes and visual imagery exercise in which I selected some Tarot cards and one Archetype card (by Sandra Myss) then used the images as cues with as little left-brain thinking as possible. This was written in about 15 minutes. It is interesting what still came out. Or maybe it isn't surprising.

--

the horse and the rider

trusting fate will come to them

as one or one as two

or two becoming one

with the innocence and trust of a child

of a newborn not yet with knowledge

not yet holding the power of choice

the power of choosing

one path leaves wreckage in its trail

another leaves seeds of life to grow

is it like the trust of the mother and her child

does she know that the child

could be the knight

could be the soldier

or the poet

or warrior monk

could she know that the child

could have the power to create

the power to destroy

the power to make others laugh

the power to make multitudes cry in sorrow

is the sorrow a thing of invention

is it a thing of creation

just as she created the child

or is it a mirror of herself

is the child to be the knight to fight all her dragons

and shed the blood of enemies

or is the child just a mirror of a self

  she would rather not see

  but knows in her heart she is a part of

(February 18, 2015)

Murmurs

Starkness of skyStarlings and murmursScotland awaits
9 February 2015

Maestoso

Brahm's "Maestoso" in the hands of Grimaud
Drift down in sheets against a Hebridean sky.

Sudden warm breath above a cold swaying sea
Impinges a moment's annoyance; violation,

Daring to slip a feather onto stony anvil;
Her fingers graze across a sandpapery mane

Seeping her softness into the saline crust
Of the sepulchre of the equine malcontent.

7 February, 2015

*"Maestoso" is the first movement of Brahm's 1st Piano Concerto. In this case, performed by Helène Grimaud with the Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra, Michael Gielen conducting.