Birdwatcher

Today I hit a god-knows-what
That sliced my tire nearly in two
I limped over on the highway
Felt the shove of semis
One, two, seven, twenty
A narcissistic bully pestering me for lunch money
To pay the Boatman to take me
Across the river

A Vulture flew overhead
A careless daredevil free falling
Into the path of certain doom
Lazily tossed to a decrepit barn
Where He perched, high, unmoving
Until safety arrived

Though a Red-winged Blackbird
Pestered
You were unyielding

You left me as an eagle
Returned, perhaps, as a scavenger?
Not to take my soul from the roadside
But to watch, perhaps, to guide
Keep a watchful eye
Or to keep me looking Up
Distracted, though fear surrounds
You always were a birdwatcher
An encourager

5/6/2024

Physical

There’s something primal

About placing a palm to the page

Leaving your mark in a physical place

A Neanderthal need to take chisel to wall

It pleases to carve hearts in a tree

My imprint pressed in a book

Fills the empty space

More viscerally

Than words lettered with electricity

Though both are deftly destroyed by a lightning strike

Tonight

The heat will only burn with the friction of my hand

To connect with refined tree bark once again

So one day passerby can point and see

I am more than a memory

Composed 4/30/2024

Spring Song

Composed: 4/8/23

Love, loss, pride, and war

Are things left unspoken for

But when trees bud and grass greens

The voice is not spoken

It sings

The Frost

Composed 11/7/21
Description: My father passed away unexpectedly in May.

The frost took the flowers last night
Once colorful, vibrant
Gone in an instant
Withered, cold to the touch

Your funeral flowers
Taken, transplanted, and watered with tears
Are untouched
Risen, sheltered by home
Absurdly more abundant
Than any foliage grasping to the ground

A strange
Comforting reminder
That you are now immortal
And more alive than even me

Silent

Composed 6/21/20

Description: An old, unposted poem as I muster up inspiration to get back into the writing game…

Silence
is not an absence
it is an abundance
of words that congeal inside my lungs
when truth is stranger
and sadder
than fiction, than satire
we are
personally, professionally, socially
overwhelmed
no wonder
no one can breathe

Genius

Composed: 2/8/2020

Description: Nothing like your friend’s refrigerator magnets to get those creative juices flowing…

One

You’re a gateway drug to everything
Would I even be me without you?
Did you see the secret part of me
Through the Johari window to my soul?

You showed me loves I had not yet uncovered
Parts I somehow knew but not yet discovered
Made a dark unconscious bright
Brought wholeness to a half life

Did you sense a kindred spirit?
Or just note a pretty eye, shy, and find it disgused
Or are you magnetized
To joy to passion to me
Pulled together until all is one and the same?

This connection…

It’s not a half-hearted compromise
It’s not a game
It’s peaked interest and laughing and comfort and fun
I needed my eyes uncovered and
You were the one

Composed 7/1/19

Silence

I woke up when the world fell asleep
The silence was so still and deep
I thought that everything had died
And only I was left alive
Cursed to lay awake and ponder
My own real loneliness

Composed 5/31/19

Opportunity

I look to lofty mountain peaks
Silhouetted in the starry sky
But when its walls I near to be
I shy to touch and fear to climb
Such beauty I imagine at its Everest
Such warmth basking close to the sun
But as I stroll past its borders
I pass by
And run
God paves the path in rose petals
With every blessed sign
But I take the fork, hands over my eyes
In the end, I suppose, too scared to try

Composed 2/16/19

Gone

Love’s like a butterfly that fell into my hand
Arresting, enchanting, fleeting
You were gone before I could say
Would you like to stay?

Composed 3/18/19