Leafy Days
Filled with bright Fall colors
Maple gold and yellow leaves appear
Mixed with green grass create a bright autumn blanket
Allowing us the option to choose
Making our hearts flutter
Flourishing

My home became a sterile room,
Where old age brought a heavy gloom.
My roommate, ninety-two and frail,
Told a sad and weary tale.

He was a cranky, bossy man,
With a less-than-gentle plan.
He’d tell me what to do and say,
And even how to start my day.

He’d run a market long ago,
With treasures he still had to show.
He tried to sell a pair of shoes,
A deal that I would soon refuse.

I loved you like a wildfire—
Uncontained
Fierce,
Growing relentlessly

Blind to the damage,
Disregarding who it harmed
Including myself…

I let it burn too hot—
Too far

---

Bare feet walk the coals
Kicking up ash
Choking on the ruin I made

If only I had loved you less.

Birds fall out of the sky like a plane in a nose dive
An osprey struggles on the water’s surface as an infant might, to break free from the restraint of its mother’s arms
They’re looking for a meal
Something fast and shiny to take back to the nest
A silver medal won in a battle. It’s a show of winning and of earning
High above the lake in sturdy and rigid nests lie small chicks covered by a strong wing
Sharp razor-blade beaks break the silence of late morning in frantic attempts at survival
A flash of silver drops into the branches’ barricade

In a vision, so true,
Almost as real as you,
Upon your skin, I swear,
I swear, I saw their kiss
The feuding pair,
Light and dark, locked in bliss
On your exquisite ebony skin.
I saw them sue for peace.
And upon your soft black lips
The lovers, they drank each other in
Through long, moaning, drawn-out sips
Though I know, God might call it sin,
Heaven, I'm sure, has never known,
Such harmony as did live on ebony skin
When light wore shadow
For a wedding gown
And sworn foes lay together

Elsie boards the Sunday bus, best coat buttoned wrong and furred with her cat, Cooking Fat’s love.

The journey takes longer. Her thoughts blind her to the window scenes. Elsie collected flowers from the communal garden early, before anyone could lecture her for doing so. She wrapped them in the community newsletter and slipped them into her plastic handbag. Water darkens her coat. She doesn’t notice.

The in's and yarns of the third sight
Fellow humans fetched a yard
Pulled a Soviet scarf
It was golden enchanted
With real's of wheels spinning round and not, the balance is shaken.

The aim is not to blink fast
Inhale the axial, breath in sequence
Notify the brain's awaken mode
Straighten the sight not to be blindfolded
Foolish acts combined with luring spirits
The wave cannot disappear
It needs to be dispatched

Up, up high

The stars poured silence into my tea,
And I drank until the ache softened—
Until your name
Hummed in my ears
Like a melody.

The steam curled
As unspoken words
Filled the pages
Of my moonlit notebook.

I wrote of time passed—
Countless glances
And gentle kisses
On nights such as this.

I long for the forgotten days
And the moments we never had

Good morning, My Dear Friend.
May I take your hand,
sojourn in the company
of these quiet woods?

Nary a fellow human
burdens this tender soil,
nor startles the Red-Eyed Vireo.
Yet, if one longs for peace,

seeks solitude within the fragrant
lavender, or the cool caress
of the shady pine, these woods
will open their arms, still your heart

and let you just...
be.

Sitting in our backyard,
I observe the private lives of birds.

Are they friends, or have they just met?
What do they think of our new fountain?

They get along quite well.
Good manners all.