When you fold your legs
and hug your knees;

a pearl encased
in a sheaf of leaves.

Beating through walls of years
like a never-ending heart machine.

She walked in nonchalantly,
dawdling on wisps of the summer breeze.

The sun fell on her lashes,
breaking into seven colours
that make merry so fleetingly.

And returning like a moody river,
her smiles, like pools of dew,
her laughs, like torrents of petals,
her silence, an exciting mystery.

this town is an artistic afterthought -
forgotten and almost there

and when i went walking today i looked down at my feet and i thought,
"pebbles like people."
it rains in the mornings here.
start with a gray sky and end with a gray sky,
and the rain is the most comforting thing.
it tip-taps on your shoulders like,
"i'm here too,
and i feel
what you feel."
it's an old friend.

the buildings all lean on each other -
their stone and their thatch,
their brick and their brawn.
they say,
"we know what we saw,"
and they make tiny skylines against the purple morning sky.

the streets are slick with rain,
black and worn
with the boots of wanderers like me
and the scuff of passersby like you.
they lead into secrets and roads
that i don't want to know about yet.

it rains in the morning here -
it paints our town all the oranges and pale greens of fall that you miss.
it pops the purple-gray of our stilting homes and offices,
our neat schools
(catholic is so relative, and innocence depends on how you look at it.)

it rains in the morning here -
and i can only dance when it rains.