Tag Archives: life

In Autumn

It’s likely I’m in Autumn. The leaves
reflect the glint of the sun — lower
in the sky though still creating a schism
in the heavens — golden light
among yellow and red foliage.

I hang a bit lower these days. Maybe
I even glow a bit less bright — dimmed
over the years though still resolved
in my journey — silver hair
replacing livelier colors.

I aged without consent, unsure
how to ask the sun to find a new pastime —
one that doesn’t revolve around
changing seasons and forcing cheese
into mold. Technicolor life.

Boxes

We moved our boxes closer
to infinity, another step
downstream from pacifying puddles
where we felt like trespassers
in paradise.

Figures once alive stand
motionless along this river, trying
to communicate as the wind
lightly breathes life into this idyllic
natural scene.

Trees become boxes, mulch
or other ephemera produced for human
transience. I may finally reside a few
steps further still, content with
our boxes.

Discolored past

The rocks mark the ground
between prospering weeds enriched
by the warmth of a sun surging overhead,
encircling those of us interred
on a planet whose
percussive heartbeat rocks me to sleep.

I sense the presence of wildflowers,
of ants scurrying together in the dirt,
of life — too bountiful to count or name —
thriving in the darkness or
at least out of sight —
I dare not note a difference in perspective.

Photos remain after we pass on
a gentle breeze that thoughtlessly turns
blacks to sepia, discoloring too many memories
otherwise cruelly lost
in darkness
even though the sun shines tomorrow.

Parachute questions

The broken ventriloquist parachuted
beyond the road, past even the living greens,
a wanderer in a straw hat
seeking life’s spark – that fire
that animates existence fully
and follows no formation.

Who paints the living? Who plants
the dead? In the end where do we go?

Asking questions with motionless lips,
he failed to hear the smoke
or any other meaning
and missing his traveling companion
returned to the road, lost after Genesis,
holding only clay.

Fade to

The mouse crept beneath a window,
hushed footfalls ringing with regrets –
cheese (oddly placed) left untouched,
cats (strangely absent) go unseen,
cold mists (often intoxicating) left outside.

The moon acts traitor to the day,
exiling sun pillars to memories,
its cryptic desire for dark
in a world teeming with low-lying rodents
(best left unnoticed) puzzles the thoughtful.

We chose the sun (tickling our necks)
as we face another day living
in the audacious light where yesterdays
fade to
today fade
to regrets
fade
and we get another chance
another choice
between cheese or cats or cold mists
or creeping in the night
clamoring for the sun.

The sailor

The day fades to amber.
A sailor scampers toward shore,
fearful of being lost on the billowy blanket
where warmth in wet ripples
soothes an otherwise fierce soul,
longing to be three
sails to the wind.

But pause, the sailor.
She called to him from behind,
crying calm waters whose
deep bold blue blended with the sky,
shades of blue amid specks of red
cascading beyond
his imagination.

Or maybe he merely wanted
to touch the sky
and turning upside-down,
adrift among the waves
and the clouds, stretched his sails
once again.
The night grows black.