And now the
Sweetest voice
Is a whisper of an echo
Of a memory.
And pictures fade,
Muted colours of shame.
And the mind
Plays ***** tricks.
And the heart
Drowns in silent tears.

On days like this
cool, with little winds
desert birds forage for sticks
they build nests perched in cactus
some build green in palo verde trees
always I think of baby birds in spring
hatchlings, the fledglings that fly
I travel far beyond the noise of towns
watch the movement of cooling clouds
the roundness of rain upon the ground
the grey banked scurrilous skies
of hurried birds, their silhouettes before a storm
daisies that close, cold amid the stones
beneath where snakes and lizards go
slither and crawl in this landscape of saguaros
and I, ever tethered can only dream to fly.

I have discovered a new region in my faith.
There are now new parts of it that glow and shimmer.
New colors emerge from the timid wilderness.
A second step so to speak.
The most beautiful part in all of this is the steps themselves.
For they are endless.
I can only ascend from here.

Dawn
light just seeping
through slatted blinds
robins begin
their morning song
at full-blast volume
I am awake, listening

hoping you made it
through the wilderness
and are sitting on the deck
with your morning coffee
listening to robins too
or loons calling on the lake
watching the sun rise

you said you wanted
to be lying naked
next to the woman
you love
when you're ninety
I hope to be the one
in your arms

perhaps completely deaf
to the robin's cacophony
and a little
worse for wear
but still loving
each other
just the same.

I promise you that we will make love
On a bed full of philosophy books
So that the depth of our hunger
Matches the depth of our thinking

Every press of my nail upon your flesh
Will have you question your existence
You'll feel more alive with every thought
Then you will understand Rene Descartes

Our smoldering bodies radiating pleasure
Will have you disregard the material world
This passion will posses the highest reality
Then you'll understand Plato's forms

Amidst my guidance toward your ******
You will hold values and aspirations close
And form your most perfect self with me
Then you'll understand Friedrich Nietzsche

On this bed full of marvelous thoughts
We will lay tangled exhausted overjoyed
For our love our lust and our everything
Will have the immensity of philosophy itself

In a glass bottle
of cerulean blue
sent out to sea
a message for you

Floating on tides
finding it's way
across the blue ocean
are the words that I say

The bottle holds wishes
some hopes and some dreams
of which you are needing
to sew up your seams

They are sent with a kindness
and a hope for one day
you will open the bottle
and again find your way

The wishes inside
are for you to find peace
for you to let go
for your sadness to cease

The hopes are for quiet
like a balm for your soul
to find once again
a way to be whole

The dreams are of silence
to be still without sound
for a mind that will settle
and serenity found

The very last wish
is of healing and care
sent with all hope
from this Little Bear.