Safe Keeping

I wish I could be broken up,
Holy divided,
And shared among my friends;
Then I could be everywhere for everyone.
Keep me in your drawers among colored cloth,
Keep me in your pockets of favorite summers,
Keep me in a safe warm place;
Your favorite memory
Rubbed into the shard of me.
I can be a day,
A reminder,
A face,
A setting;
Just keep me near at hand.
Walk me along the fields at night,
Run with me the risk of being forgotten,
Toss me towards the stars but don't expect me to burn bright
Across this long night sky.
So lay down with me in the memories
Or just bury me beneath your favorite tree
And I will grow a monument for you as all we've ever been.
Elegant or crude, stumbling or smooth;
I'd be proud just to be the purpose of your planting hands.

Kindly Forget

The mistake that I made
              Would
Be reopening that box.

And letting myself remember
         That
Time makes us all strangers.

Everyone likes to say that they would
                                   Make
The same choices again; I don't think I could.

Letters and tickets, all in triplicate,
            It
Is a lot to come back upon.

Don't let restless regret get the
                                    Better
Of your better choices, better friends.

I will amass the memories with reverence,
             For
I will care for their meaning and their sleep.

I don't mind being the archivist alone; as for
                                         You?
Your work is over, your work continues.

Thank you.

tennis courts, july 2014

Falling With Room to Spare

I can stand the feeling of falling,
When gravity wins me back;
All dressed up and down I go.

Oh hello old familiar foundations,
Breaking the fall; can't see anything
With my feet off the ground and head in the clouds.

Comfortable with being uncomfortable;
Learning to lean with the curves.
I'm a mess,
I'm a wreck;
We're doing well,
We're doing fine.

Jumping off the balconies,
Conducting your own backyard symphonies,
Sprinkler sprinting along the main street scene;
Failing, falling, all the progress to be done.

We are royal glory and royally undone;
Listen to us creak and moan with the possibilities,
Watch us bow and bloom beneath the summer sun,
Feel us fight for air and forgotten friendships.

Let us linger among the late night laughter,
Flaunt the fascinating failures of risks we took,
Swapping words about the stars we wish we could follow,
And admit just how just how afraid we all are each day.

Falling, falling, falling;
Time to let go.

An Ending (Ascent)

Here's how I think the story will end.

The cities will fall quiet,
Will shudder and stop.
Left behind are concrete canyons and bridges cross river spans,
As our echoes linger on.
The trees will take back the 'burbs,
The seas will sweep into the cites,
With all of us left watching from the hills.

Want to know what the last sounds will be?
A symphony of cell phones switching off for the last time.
Car engines sputtering down to a stand still, then gone,
Everything standing still as the world spins on.

I think this wouldn't be such a sad thing.

Everything could go green again.
And we would be free to talk once more.
Brother birds take the back the skies,
Sister wolves the mountains,
Father whales the sea,
Mother sky blue once again.
Our home whole again.
And our own
Mothers,
Sisters,
Brothers,
Fathers,
Will remember their families before an end.

Swan Song Summer

Glorious sun of this small town,
Daughter dancing to her own rhythm,
Children of the summer,
Come and gone in heat and bloom.

So watch the summer night spells,
Crystalline blue in the dark,
And find fond memories there
To warm us through cold days to come.

I held the embers of the season,
Swan songs for long roads and late nights,
You are vintage hued and vintage crowned,
How you'll be remembered for the years,

Standing proud and laughing,
Behind rippling waves of heat of the day,
Beneath the sentry stars of night,
All just swan songs for the summer when we felt small.

The Fall of Rain

Beautiful is the girl who longs to dance in the rain,

And brave is the boy who learns love that way.

So where is the rain when you need it most,

When you just need something new.

Those dark clouds rumble a promise of change,

Teasing when they belong to just the horizon,

But there is joy in a rainy day parade.

Joy in the face of a child,

Peace as the noise eases me to sleep,
And beauty in the falling baptism.

The rain does not care if I sleep
Or if I'm awake holding talks with all my thoughts,
The rain will fall and the world spins on.

Things for the Future

People always say that you should slow down
But I wish I could have stopped altogether
The darkness on the edge on town.
I catch flashes of where I used to stand;
All the halls and the beliefs and on my own two feet.

Maybe I lost the curiosity

Of what's behind the hill, the door, the story;

Maybe it should all stay a mystery

So I can learn the right questions.

And I miss the rain that would shake the house
And I miss those bright summer nights
And I miss security and I miss sleep
But mostly I think I missed the safety net.

One day I gave up walking for floating,

Losing contact with the ground,

I floated through past citadels and mountains alike

And I could not stay.

I just want us all to find a safe warm place,
A house or a town that we can call our own
Where I will place the bonfire in the square.
For miles and miles our friends will be drawn to it.

And is well in the end. 

Simple

There is something to be said for a simple Saturday,
Sunlight cast through the dust, through the window;
There can be beauty in the act of waking up.

In the movements of the old man's knuckles

As he kneads away at the freshly made dough,

Clouds of flour fill the air in the bakery down the road.

Hands breach through the comforting earth,
Amid rocks and roots in the confines of this garden,
And the wind continues it's quiet course.

Silence blankets the museum corridors,
A landscape framed by four corners;
Somewhere I've been, somewhere I could be.

The neighborhood rests at night,
Still and at peace;
All is alive and everything sleeps.

Sleep Nightly Creature, Sleep

Sleep Nightly Creature, sleep.
To the nightly noises, pay no heed;
It's just the trees.

Sleep Nightly Creature, sleep.
Go to your bending dreams;
Weighed down beneath the sheets.

Did you have a hard day?
Did some innocence fade away?
Sleep Nightly Creature, sleep.

Peeking from beneath covers,
You don't have to stay awake to welcome the day.
Sleep Nightly Creature, sleep.

Things for Now

You left one morning to go on a permanent run.
Did you remember your keys?
Did you remember your path?
"It all led here! It all led here!"
You shouted at the end and then pressed on.
You shuddered through the cold and sweated through the heat,
Laughed with the thunder and got lost in the silence.
There's art in the challenge and beauty in the trials;
By the way you wear your worn skin so well.
What was it like running beneath the falling embers?
Those crimson sparks that drifted like snow.
What was it like running long after the path ended?
I'm proud that you made your own.
Oh how you fell and fell and fell again
With each one further than the last.
But still you keep rising
And still you keep running.