O, never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify.
As easy might I from my self depart
As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie.
That is my home of love; if I have ranged,
Like him that travels I return again,
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that myself bring water for my stain.
Never believe though in my nature reigned
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
......
Ginkgo, cottonwood, pin oak, sweet gum, tulip tree:
our emotions resemble leaves and alive
to their shapes we are nourished.
Have you felt the expanse and contours of grief
along the edges of a big Norway maple?
Have you winced at the orange flare
searing the curves of a curling dogwood?
I have seen from the air logged islands,
......
(Dedicated to Roxann Dahl )
The news was shocking and bad, my heart
was heavy and sad.
The man took her life without remorse,
with violence and force.
Tried reaching for a star, just found it
too far.
The baby was only seven, she is now in
heaven.
......
Buoyed up by the syntheses of the past,
idyllic murals of green hills open paths
to a healing truth.
What say the brown camels of Casablanca
to assassins nursing festered wounds of
new Karma?
Yesteryears recline on the shoulders of
a greying age, chanting songs to a
......
There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams
hurry too rapidly down to the sea,
and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops
makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion,
turning to waterfalls under our very eyes.
- For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains,
aren't waterfalls yet,
in a quick age or so, as ages go here,
they probably will be.
But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling,
......
The path is long,
The road is eerie,
The night is cold,
The soul is weary.
You clutch your candle close,
Protect it as it burns.
It's barely illuminating,
The twists and turns.
......
I have travelled that far
to the final edge of time
with such radiant hopes
and youthful dreams--i'll not succumb
to the harsh and unjust dictates of fate
nor hide away in fear-- farther
than my heart's endurance I have travelled--
my will speaks: I'll not look back--never, never, never!
Again I sit in an airport gate.
2 hours removed from 100 days in Dublin.
15 hours from another Florida homecoming.
My heart aches for the Irish green I'm leaving.
It aches, too, for the warm beaches I've missed.
How obnoxious, to mourn both at once.
I will never have enough days at home.
......
Buoyed up by the syntheses of the past,
idyllic murals of green hills open paths
to a healing truth.
What say the brown camels of Casablanca
to assassins nursing festered wounds of
new Karma?
Yesteryears recline on the shoulders of
a greying age, chanting songs to a
......
The lights from the station platform
Flicker on the floor of the carriage
As the train pulls away into the dark
My fingers and toes counteract
The toing - froing, pushing
Hard into the floor and handrail
Under the my fingers white
Knuckled stoney eyed. I stare
......