Close your eyes,
just sleep,
with your hair
tickling
my ears,
hand in mine,
relaxed,
beautifully
at rest,
Asleep
as I dream
in-depth
awoken
to your beauty.

At first light trudging through the Arctic Snow,
Is it for thrill or just a Facebook photo show?
As the Arctic wind buffets our flushed face,
The long-awaited walk soon becomes a shambles of a race.
Hands morph to splintered wood, eyebrows deftly freeze,
And yet the brochure promised we’d do this trek with ease.
Soldier on, embrace the frigid grind,
Pray aloud that inner fortitude to find,
Not a sound outside our laden breath,
Every move made with fractured hapless stealth.
But coupled to the cold a streaming sweat,
A larger wager would I not have surely bet,
That a saunter on the glistening Arctic Tundra
Would at most develop the art of soothing Mantra.

Then a booming voice disturbs this quiet introspection,
As the guide engages in frantic group inspection,
His walkie talkie comes suddenly to life,
Stern commands soon wailing shrill with strife.
Bears ahead with teenage cubs in tow,
Keep down, stay low,
Curb the chatter, pretend you’re but a stone,
Form a line, don’t venture out alone;
Rifle’s cocked, don't turn around,
Polar bears don't run - they bound.
Now move backwards, avoid their steely gaze,
Take full advantage of this soaring Polar haze.

Maybe minutes, but seemingly an age,
As we shuffle blindly stage by stumbling stage;
Our Dunkirk - the waiting rubber boats,
Ecstatic for anything that somehow runs and floats.
Back to the ship, sodden and quite sore,
Not to mention frozen to the epicenter of our core,
We huddle around cups of steaming tea,
Sharing stories of all we had to fear and see.
You may well ask, was this the fateful end,
Did we to natures will forlornly yield and bend?

It's true the thought did rather cross our minds,
Fearful of more unscripted scrapes and woeful binds,
However, a good sleep and liquid strength galore,
Did somewhat mollify that sorry shameful score.
For as dawn broke early the next day,
To a person did we in seeming chorus say:
Off we trudge as more adventure waits,
To experience all that Nature's majesty creates,
Our only thought one of craving more,
And so we went, still frozen to our core.

Shooting stars shine bright
while they fly through the cosmos
ascending to the highest heights

But all that goes up goes down
And the highest pay the biggest price
For as they once had glory, and world-wide renown
Now they have only fragments of the perfect life

Crashing down forgotten,
spiralling away
Our bodies with sickness rotten
our minds withering with decay

There is bit one thing that can save us
One thing between us and the noose and rope
The brightest shining star of all:

☆Hope☆

Perchance God created this world
For you to bless its ground.
Perchance God, with the love He holds,
Believed that you must be bound.

So He stole all your love
And hid it far from view,
And now you walk the earth
Without feeling in truth.

Perchance He’s in endless doubt—
That one day, you’ll forget
What He did, and what He does—
Oh, it fills Him with regret.

So He fled within the stars,
And to work was He set—
To amend and put to right
Eons of secrets.

For from your love He shall create
Everything that ever flew—
Every red, wine-rich fruit.

And in His need to express His self-hate,
From all the silent tears you abate,
God channeled all His sorrow through—
Creating that beautiful, tender morning dew.

What motherhood is
rediscovering
your whole being

in these multiple foci of endless universes

Finding spots of
happiness
hidden amongst

These oblique moments of time

Learning that
salvation
is

Her

And within

Her

coarse form of courage
to take it

One step a day
Two breaths in
One slow, really slow out

And still
when she goes out

She'll do so brightly

With that genuine smile

And what of a flower
whose petals fall in a sacrificial ritual
to make room for new ones to grow

She blooms where grief forgets to sleep,
beneath the sallow hush of twilight trees—
a flare of red in softened ash,
the last confession of the breeze.

Petals curled like whispered sins,
each one a blade of memory—
a wound too pretty to regret,
too sacred to let bleed freely.

She doesn’t seek the sun like roses do.
No, she is the flame of parting steps—
ephemeral,
like the breath between
goodbye
    and
      gone.

Born of myth and muddy water,
they say she grows where spirits roam—
a guardian of thresholds,
the keeper of the in-between,
wearing sorrow like a crown
no one dares remove.

And still,
   she rises.
Not for life,
but to remind the world:
some things only bloom
      in farewell.