I wonder what you see
when you look at me.
Do you see the real me
                  or
the me you want me to be?

fields of lavender
as far as the eye can see,
in rows of scented purple
growing insatiable idiosyncrasies,
our minds are a rich, deep soil
and the children of our thoughts
run free,

run free
and light,
run free
and careless,
like a river to the sea.

the heart is programmed
to be broken,
to let in the light,
and the earth in us is woken,
our heart will open,
it will open,

when we take in our first
breath of this heaven.

In shadowed streets where silence weeps,
And echoes chase the feet of time,
A whisper hums where sorrow sleeps,
“Stay soft,” it sings, “though life may climb
Its thorn-wrought walls and break your skin,
Do not let hardness settle in.”

For pain may press with quiet might,
May twist the dawn into the night,
But you, dear soul, are not your ache,
Not every bruise, not every break.
You are the hush between the rain,
The breath that rises after pain.

So let it hurt. Let teardrops fall
Like silver bells down sorrow’s wall.
Let it swell and let it sting,
Grief is a wild, untamed thing.
But let it heal. The heart, it knows
How even shattered gardens grow.

And when the ache begins to fade,
Like fog dissolved by morning’s blade,
Let it go—release its hold,
The stories pain has tried to mold.
You are more than what you bear,
A flame still dancing through despair.

So rise, as mist that greets the sun,
As rivers do when thaw has come.
Rise soft, rise fierce, rise with your grace,
The world may harden—but not your face.
Smile with the soul that’s weathered through,
There’s still a bloom inside of you.

Don't praise me
you didn't see me fall:
if there you were
such words
you wouldn't have said
at all-

you're an outsider
and much of me
you don't really know

praise me not
look elsewhere
it's more worthwhile there

myself
I search
and examine
and see only
my many faults

when the sun goes down
behind the trees
and locks her shutters tight

the moon comes out
with silver keys
to open up the night

Your words are your song
They rest on the moon
To some its done off key but you sing it loud and proud
Some in the car and some in tbe shower
They never lose their power
Look to the sky
Deep in your heart
Examine the stars
Eclipse

'There is, at midnight, a swoosh,
a backward sound
unheard at 6 o'clock.
Time licks the moment,
the bells, the knock on
tomorrow.  

We amaze
as dawn asks for its
audience and our last
guesses fade into
today.  

Nascent trails
of memories rise and
fall

into the rescue mission
the sunlight brings on
feet of clod.

It will be a day of reaching
into the pocket of love
newly incarnate.  

You
receive me.

Caroline Shank
March 3, 2025

The voice, the bell-yellow
voice of the sax plays on.
Under the mind like a layer
of canvas lie the brushes
and strokes, the arms and legs
of memory.  The arrival on the
skin of sound is the moment
of love.  The unfurling of
the pallette.

You say, listen, the wail of
breath on brass is mine.  No,
it is yours.  The voice, no
longer alone, even when
unaccompanied, falls from
the blues of evenings or the
reds of afternoons, approaches
with footprints in sand.  We
are castled in music, our
colors unfurled.

Our fingers on the keys.  We
see the archetype of design in
the sound of the sax, the
movement in the fabric of
stripes.  The sound’s colors
draw us to each other.
Listen.  The wail of breath
on brass is everywhere.
Listen.


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