Evening fades

Evening fades;
both boats and ducks
are headed home to roost.
And so begin the soft familiar sounds,
the clatter and the clucking,
the murmurs and the rustling
of a family settling in,
a boat tying up;
of birds, shifting in the nest.
Shoulders,
tensed against the wind and tide,
drop now, and nestle
each to each for warmth,
and for companionship.
Light falls, the dark descends,
and hearts expand to hold the light
until the dawn returns.

A new perspective

Come climb the hill with me,
my love, and let us find
some new perspective
on this life we've built together;
follow the tracks to higher ground
and see our world
in a larger context;
ourselves as smaller cogs
in a boundless universe,
turning slowly with the sun,
revolving on some angled axis
unknown, but surely felt --
yes, felt,
yes, there,
deep within our chests.

Breathe in the light and color;
breathe out, let every act breathe out
awareness of the tender joy
that takes the time to paint each leaf --
first green, then red, then brown --
then gently separates the stem from branch,
softening each fall with a wisp of wind
and a cushion of grass.

Too much peace

Funny, isn't it --
the owners of this boat
have migrated north,
leaving behind
a yellow kayak,
which a group of terns,
migrating south,
have taken as their temporary home.

Why is it
that the terns
dancing on their yellow kayak
are so much more fun to watch?

I guess too much peace
can get a bit boring...

Wondering

Breathe deep:
traverse that single step
from curiosity to awe;
from I wonder what,
I wonder why,
I wonder who,
step back --
and gaze in wonder.

Communion

Which,
I have to ask,
is the real me?
The soothing mass of color
that dominates what you see?
The fiery tones
exploding in the corner?
The determined strokes of white
that stitch a loosely woven alb
to mask the passions hidden there?
The stains
that seep through nonetheless,
like wine upon the altar cloth...
All me, I fear,
all working together in communion;
a taste of the Divine.

D'Artagnan's

You reach for me in sleep,
and I, awakened by the ending of a dream,
feel my heart soften at the sound,
that murmur of contentment
that you make,
the strumming of the harp strings in your throat,
when skin connects to skin.

After so many years –
is it 28, or 29? –
I still find this so moving:
the way your hand,
when it finds my arm,
curls so protectively around;
whole body following,
knees pressed in sleep
more tightly into mine,
the curve of a foot, the last to follow,
gliding slowly,
arcing into place beneath my own,
and then again -- that sound you make:
so hard to describe, and yet
each time I hear it,
I hear echoes of a rainy night,
driving home along the river
in a topless car,
the laughing of the breeze
and then that exultant crow,
and your hand,
stealing across the wet seats into mine.

I knew then I was yours,
as I am still,
and will be,
until both our breathing
and our curling
find their rest.

To storm, or not to storm

It's morning,
but I'm not yet sure
which way the wind is blowing:
those clouds beyond the trees --
are they rolling in or out?
Is this light here to stay
or fading fast --
and if I knew, what would I do
differently?

Would I change the tune I'm humming
or change direction; walk back home,
in fear of what's to come?

For now, I choose to stand and savor,
feast on the flavors of light and dark,
the exhilaration of the moment
when neither has yet stolen the scene.
The battle's not yet won,
and the color's at its richest,
juicy with the promise
of a day that's waiting to unfold.

The lost dimension

Though land divides
the sea from sky,
and reflections give
illusions of great depth,
there are only two dimensions
here displayed:
the viewer has no sense
of the water that lies beyond,
between the houses and the mountains;
or even that the water here
flows around and through
and back beyond the other side
with each and every tide;
no sense that I could walk to you
from where I stand.

Divisions -- yours and mine -- appear to work
in almost that same way:
I take my stand, and you take yours,
each displaying massive depth of thought
in our reflections,
forgetting -- in the heat of argument --
all the ways that we are linked;
let slip the ancient memory,
the depth of the connection
that flowed across the water
before time began, that carries still
from you to me and back again to you,
and then again, around, beyond, behind us both
along a plane which disagreement makes
invisible,
impassable.

And so I ask you this:
what chance have we
of restoring that third dimension;
of finding again
that source that connects us both?

Summer's End

So happy, on a summer's day,
to hang the laundry out to dry,
to watch the t-shirts
swaying in the breeze
while sailboats scurry by...
too short, these days now:
time and children
fly before the wind,
off on new adventures,
trailing laundry as they go.
The house staggers
with the spin cycle;
tacks, then rights itself again
while seagulls watch
loudly mourning from the rooftop
as the wheels spin out of the driveway,
rushing for a ferry.

God waves like wheat

Watching from the train
as the world speeds by,
I drink from the cup of summer fields,
glowing in light's embrace;
taste the sweet blue warmth of sky,
roll the clouds on my tongue;
imagine the farmer
stepping from his shed
with scythe in hand...
God waves like wheat
in a field of wind.