When I'm seeking shade from a relentless sun,
And brush a rejected leaf off my shoulder,
I feel poetry.

When I brought my girls home,
From hospital, school, a bad night out,
I've experienced poetry.

Walking Front St., or  Centennial Park,
While the buskers are busy,
The children are laughing,
The dogs are barking,
I've heard poetry.

If fortunate to espy a shooting star,
Enjoy the fullness of an autumn moon,
Witness the dawn light up my lawn,
Like a diamond mine,
I've seen poetry.

I've tasted poetry on my lips
With kisses and endearing words,
And lingering tastes from what you serve.
Yes, I've savored poetry's flavors.

Who reads poetry.

On rising heat, killdeer flush
to decoy the enemy--
threat to its young that roams too close
They rush to skim on hayish blur
wailing over wildflowers drying

Fretful twitter in perpetual flight
swifts-- twirl and hurl their bits of bodies--
debris
from a cumulonimbus of a late-day sky
toward a ridge of stag horn sumac
presuming horizon primordial
behind which time and city-- drift and wobble
on rising heat-- after rush hour

*Rising Heat
Rising--
to meet my mind
on its way down
from my post behind
the laundromat
where I view it all--
rising--
where I usually go in search of quiet
to almost hear the ocean
     two hundred miles away
to strain words from wind
     in careless conversation
to wonder over
     missed whispers....

But not today
In rising heat, I went down
in search of something better--
     your eyes again
     solvent for my presence of mind
     dissolvers of hours and the order of things
But I need an excuse!
     To turn, to trespass, to disturb the peace!
     For your eyes again!
And still I need more-- being feverish, weak
Or?
Or... should I take the cure?
     To deny ...To deny

To deny what?
Overtones from a sea of years?
I don't know!  Whatever it was!
Nothing explain it...

I melt... I'm gone....

She has no mirror
but where flirt the leaves with the pond
she comes in the cool of noon
mixing the dark of her hair
with the summer shade
dipping into glass green water
her toes and far above
and all the pond sees
encrypts within the bubbles of rainbow
that only her clothes
swelled in awe
can read.

The Sun spreads her words across a symphony
of color at the days end
Hoping her loving expression reaches the moon
and that it transcends

The moon slowly rises from the sea
Looking everywhere for his love is he
Calling across all time and space
Searching for his light and her beautiful face

The Sun lights up the big beautiful sky
He has witnessed this with his very own eyes
Her beautiful words are etched deep inside of me
Penetrating my core to the very existence she sees

Excited today is the day we will get our chance
We do not have to chase each other for that dance
We will dance all the way from the top of Mt Hood
To the bottom and beyond the Alabama Hardwood

We take each other to the depths of the unknown
Embracing what was meant to be together not alone
One brief moment he will trace my outline with his lips
Shadowing my body to make our very own Solar Eclipse

three bags,
two large
one small

two boxes,
of assorted
miscellany

photos of
one and all

two calendars
two clocks
one for the bedside
one for the wall

quilt and favoured pillow
one petite eletric recliner

assorted toiletries,
mostly pretty soaps

decorative pillows
nine in all...

this is what we moved
from place to place
gathering up the fraying
edges of a life unravelling
moving her one rung
closer to the divide

melancholy  thoughts
meloncholy thoughts

these are the small pieces
of a life lived large and hard

tears gathered in linen
as new friends  are lost
uncertain the path before
sadness at the cause

brave hearted she  is
at yet more loss....
brave hearted she is
at what lies before