Ode to Earth (II)

The grace of her lord dwells here,
in all that she shares-
she, the most faithful,
with eyes for no one else.

In this life she sleeps,
Dreaming of past rivers, broken
in the sea of empty seas,
With him, burning so bright,
the shepherd of a million souls.

Humble sentries keep her still
Wrap her in cruel, old shadows-
the stories, in the night
to hide her gentle soul, so still,
from the cold realm he keeps.

Yet, she trembles, murmurs
her hopes to a senseless sky-
To be free, at last,
to see the one she adores most!

One day, someday,
His glorious light will rise,
His last coming, rapturous goodbye,
To spirit her away.

Like her lost sisters, angels
waiting in their rafters,
She'll scatter flesh and bone
to the heavens once more.

Ode to Earth (I)

New roots crackle in soft ground,
the battle above, long finished;
pieces of wind stray, torn
on the shadows of pennants green.

Forever is the siege below,
the soft ground, the fairest
in any starry eyed soul,
a place so uncomely
in all but its secret eyes,
an endless heart, it stole
from the lord of light.

Forever her heart opens,
her soft gaze lost at sea,
where no broken spirits,
no ghosts can dwell.

Forever the wanderers seek
with hunger of new life,
with twisting trails of winding years,
to open arms so blind
(and the sky leads them away).

Magnolia IX

The stillness overtakes me,

Casts pale sheets of light

upon the soulful, trickling want

dripping slowly over weary eyes.

Her soft gaze bears deep pools of gold,

Ringed with rippled watermarks-

veins left from the receding deluge

pin the sky over her face.

A dancer in subtlety, she sweeps, at last,

Bending to touch the cloaked ground,

Clutching its hidden seams,

So slippery, in nimble hands

so wisps of winged shadow fly,

but to come back in morning sky.

How quaint, as old memory recedes,

My friend of unchanging grace;

My love, as firmly rooted as she,

In rare, sweet rediscovery.

Deluge in Unfocused Eyes

The sea has never quite left us,

Isles of its soul above the land

hanging on where life is.

Time has fought the tide,

Won in intricate wars, but skirmishes

writing, rewriting colorful limits,

Burying tenebrous songs of old.

Yet, the waters labor on, now clothed

in green, crimson, and gold-

In the fall foliage breaking,

spears of waving green,

Unending in a floating world.

Remnants

Suppose I

could.

Suppose I could shake the longest, dryest of waiting tears until I'd never cry again, losing my reluctant love where it finds someone perfectly happy.

I smile, keep, keep walking, and it is gone. My dearest, my very last resistance, gone.

Watching.

Suspended in the sorrow that overtakes the wind for a long, long while, waiting, sitting on the meager shadows of rising and falling night and day. The cycle gets heavy, watching her dull, scratched reflection on the sea.

From far away, a tree grows where the sad little shame had been, already staining, bridging every little star to the sun and never, ever stopping. Built on tears, where the salt became the sand and the rolling, twisting sob burrowed deep and right through the rock, it wrinkles in disgust at the blushing sunset, and does not know how to smile.

Star to star, branches tip close as they can. To the others, they say. As long as this tree is here, no one shall fall, ever again. As long as this is here, every dreamer may walk forth, merry, on this thin, thin ice of a night.

Soon, there shall be a forever, stronger than the others, the little one hopes.

I shall touch where my master failed, and I shall glow in the night.

For all the dreamers, to sit where I break into the glassy night, I stay.

Magnolia Tree Revisited

It was I who was mistaken-
Seasons do not follow,
Old words could not lead
Some tale of true permanence.

Sweet, blushing green, still sharp
Cuts from the shadows, intricate,
Until they are clearly jigsawed away,
Swiftly peeled, near unseen,
From the secrets of each breeze.

Here, the only place so pure-
The warmth truly rests, lays
In ripple pools across glass shadow,
(For the summer turns such tides).

Here, the start of suspended pride-
Cracks and crevices holding unfaded sky,
All amid blessed creamy frame, wrought
For the most delicate trickle of light.

Knowing

This be a slice of reality,
A sheet of paper fallen, conveniently,
Away from the empty weight
(On which this love affair began).

Feigning silence, architects?
They dance around a universe created,
Projected, calculated, desecrated,
At last, dejected- a shrine.

One slice, just one, and
I am far from here, leaning
Far past the breadth of life, daring
To fold, peel this sheer leaf- anew.

Paradise

Lovers do not choose
Which springs should fall as memories,
Which hold summer so close
to their chill shawls,
Seasons sneak by in a matter of days.

Sheets of rain may wrap the world
So deeply in a cocoon, all things tied
to an endless metamorphosis;
Every moment is suspended.

Sunlight may cascade, just the same-
New wanderers made of us-
Entwined in pastels, or saturated
with everything under the sky.

Whatever it should be,
We find ourselves drawn together.

Impossible

There is another globe,
Another universe
Waiting on the dawn,
Mismatched highways
Threading the earth.

Someday, we'll free ourselves;
Endless cycle, unattached
To a dream; the next one
Still unopened, yet
Pulled furthest from the sky.

Dew

A mystery of life
Suspends upon the morning,
Then falls back to sky.

Watercolor Heart

My love so deep, a river sound
That catches all that brush my ground.
Strokes of fate, I call embrace,
And all the world with lovers' trace.

Leaves do plummet, red and gold
Which light upon a journey sold,
That eve of winter lease to fall,
To end her envy of us all.

But come, my love, to my banks
And wash away your journey woe,
That powdered flush upon your heart
To paint upon my months of floe.

Magnolia Tree (II)

A missed summer falls
Upon a wilted spring,
Clinging, fading
Shards of old silk;
An embroidered tempest
Of glimmering script.

Props of an old stage
Peek from old frames.
Imagination cascades-
Curtains, not curtain calls
Rest first impressions.
Unending wonder.

Hedges

Fixtures of summer;
Blocks of sullen, shadowed bloom
Mild the summer glow.

Simplicity of Life

Things of beauty
Grow from cold ground.
Watered by anger
That makes not a sound.

Pushing, pushing
Fresh humility to dew.
Icy drops glinting
Slowly as they grew.

Until the sun rose
To see its steady pride,
But blocks of fresh color
To take in its stride.

[Read the post titled Journal Entry for an introduction to this series]