Later

I'll be off adventuring for about two weeks. Hope to come back refreshed and ready to write more. See you all in a couple weeks.

mb

Growing light

her eyelids lift and
her gaze shifts up
to the shuttered window yellow with
leaking light at the edges

with a sigh, she stirs her head
just the slightest bit
not yet turning to look
at me

I lean over her
my cheek on hers
inhaling her sweet small smell
the one she's always carried

my hand slides under her pillow
wrapping my arm underneath
to cradle her again
and my other hand rests

on her growing hip
that rises under the quilt
like a small, silent hill
a slow beginning

I sigh, too, resting my eyes
on the tree out the window
and the one right here,
on deep roots and growing light

Series: Visibility 5

Series: Visibility 1, 2, 3, 4

A series I've been playing with that developed into something more than I expected. One builds on the next, in order below from 1 through 4. I eventually took that literally with the last, a composite of the first three. If you click on them you should see larger versions.

1






















2






















3




4

Thinking

the scent that gathers
in the kitchen air

the feel of cream
across my lips

the bittersweet taste
of mocha on my tongue

I could drink
a cup of you

Interior landscape

invisible scars —
palpable from
from the circuitous
roads of childhood
that wind among
old hills, and
run like a map
under my veins —

on days like these
old scars
ache

old roads
become suddenly
magnetic

old hills
suddenly
rise again,
their slopes moving
past the angle
of repose

tumbling me with
scabbed knees
back into
childhood

falling, I
search the enfolding
darkness for pinpoints
of light, openings,
beginnings

to begin again
and again
as I have
and will
again


***
Photo: Peonies in last night's sunset

Owl feather

It's been a busy week, other things pulling me away from writing and commenting. But here's a little offering:

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

— Derek Wolcott

Elements

dirt crumbles in my hand
dry and almost grey
threaded with tiny roots
from last season

strange alchemy,
primitive and powerful,
converts
seed and soil to rootlet,
to plant, to fruit

simple:
water and love
light and wind

*

love, nourishment
and tender attention,
from thought to word,
from word to dream —

slake my thirst
give a kiss
and under the warm
rush of your breath
watch how we
bloom

Like that

I have nothing to offer
but this
the fire of one soul
reaching out
to another

the spark
when two live wires
touch

I trace a shooting
star through the night
falling into
the dim light of
the eastern sky's rim

and I say
yes
like that

just like that

The flock spins

the flock spins
brilliant in the sun
wings edged white
like the sudden flick
and flash of a graceful fan

beyond yellow-flowering rabbitbrush
the fox lopes black-legged
and lean, fur tipped with light,
ears cocked behind yellow eyes

six deer are silhouetted
on the bright rim of the hill
large ears turning synchronously
one shadowed tail twitches

buffeted by wind and sun
halfway to the crest
under high branching pines
my tired cheeks burn

hair whips unbound
swimming in light
alive and beating
my heart doesn't want to settle

Stone in the river

there is a stone in the river
as big as a house

flowing down to the sea

there is a log in the river
caught against the stone

flowing down to the sea

slip out of the boat
walk the log
over the rushing waters

flowing down to the sea

slide past the house rock
and dive

flowing down to the sea

green
light
bubbles
shadows
light
green

flowing down to the sea

light
surface
push —
breathe!

Fields of sky

did I dream it —
that I had a nest
in which to curl
with folded wings

did I dream the
dappled shade of
the apple tree
and the warm
wind that stirred
my feathers

did I dream the
clouds flying
across an
invitation of blue

did I dream the
dance with you
in the fields of sky

is it
this dream

Further in

further in
between the shadows of the leaves

slide sideways
searching

slip through green
into darkness

light shifts
the lens adjusts

eyes widen
the smile lifts

in blue shadows
underneath

tender darkness
blanket-like

reach and touch
roots and tangles

soft soil
damp

depths of
further in