Golden wave:
Noise muted.
Hands harvest blows.

Cicadas sing
Cedars on the horizon:
Voiceless words.

Birds declaim
The feeling of wet
Earth in wet air.

Gray clouds ragged
By a thousand lightnings
Released in a look.

Running water:
I Run with the stream.
Which mouth awaits?

I look to the east
    beyond the Catskill ridges
        bathed in dawn light hues.

for Ashley and Trent

Joyous tears lie just ahead,
for Trent and Ashley
will seal their love today.

Pipes, strings, brass and voices
will soar beneath
Saint Peters towering nave

and we'll rise as one to affirm
their pledge of love and faith.

They met in band at Belleville East
and always seemed to know

that on some spring morn in June
they would stand at the altar
to vow their lives to constancy.

We all knew it too and today
we would be no other place

for hope unbounded rules the day
and echoes in our grateful hearts.

for the Webster University Jazz Quintet

A tripod of piano, bass and drums
was spread across the stage
weaving chords and counts
into finest sonic cloth.
trumpet and tenor intersticed between,
dazzled the sound-scape
with vision and calculated risk.

Solos poured out like fountains
with swaying, clapping and bobbing heads;
Eyes closed to let the light of imagination in.

With colors as sharp and vibrant
as the cut glass windows behind them,
they painted memories of Miles
back-lit by Solar flares
and took a pleasant hike
in Shorter's Footprints
to the jazz realm's distant borders.

Having journeyed so many Miles,
we paid them sincerest thanks,
steered our engines homeward
then slept – tapping our toes in our dreams.

April,  2007