The other

If this is all I will ever have,
Then let me know soon enough,

But maybe, I don’t want to know.
The reason why the birds in the sassafras,
Grow silent before a storm.

Your stillness keeps me hanging on,
Like wood clothespins, caught on the swell of old rain soaked rope,
Strung between two poles, swaying in the back yard.
Waiting for long sleeve shirts and sailing sheets,
That toss and turn on the inside now,
since the dryer was fixed.

I still believe.
There is time to get home before the lightening strikes.
I want to keep you the way you were,
before I knew,
The way the air feels,
after it rains

Snowman

As you melted away,
I tried to build you back up,
To what you were before.
But there wasn’t enough of me,
To keep you anymore.

Snowmen don’t have knees,
To beg or plead,
With God,
So I knelled beside you,
And prayed for one more day,

A scarf and pipe,
came floating by.
I reached over to touch your face,
And you were gone.

Excerpt from ACT IV (The King’s War)

"But thou has never known the need for solace daughter!
Thou hast yet to bear the weight of an empty heart:
Thou knowest where thy true love is,
Yet unlost in battle, or to another’s curve.
Thou shall see one day, my dear!

“Though, I wish to God, that thou wouldst not.
I pray thee, that thou couldst remain,
As thou art presently:
Full of strong heart, but with eyes,
As dim as thy lamp of oil is to the brightness of day.

“I pray thee, that thou shall not stand,
As I do this hour,
Sorting out with one hand, the harvest of such a small garden as thou has grown thus far!
And smile,
That thou perceiveth it’s wealth for thee, as vast and encompassing.
When thou has had neither past nor present feasts to prepare;
When thy house has only been thy tiny loft by the hearth of thy mother And father.
Thy steed, a besom who neither drinks nor eats but a fare share of dust.
Who neither jumps nor startles thee.
When thine only guests, have been made of clay and little dresses,
before thee round about,
at playful supper and meat.

“Dearest, I pray that thou, changest not,
And keepeth with tender heart,
What thou dost still crave, with a child’s unknowing:
That thou believest in a walking God, and not a stillness,
That robbeth the Night of all its stars,
And the day, its handsome men, on riding horses."

LOST

Far away from the road,
in the thickest part of the forest,
I pretended I wasn't scared,
by pretending I knew the way.

In a half closed eyelid of sky,
I saw those crows and barred owl,
as omen in the cold-
earlier in the day I watched them,
and didn't feel this way.

Faster in a larger circle I wandered,
shoved ahead by boney finger thoughts:
of how my skull will frighten a hunter next year.
And the rest of me scattered by coons,
grateful for the good meal.

It was then,
that I saw the smoke,
rising from your chimney.
Your cabin was close enogh for me to shout.
You waved ,
and never knew,
how glad I was,
to see you.

Walk On Water

He went ahead of me,
With trembling legs.
“Listen for the sound”, father whispered.
“The lake will let us know, if we are allowed.”
“Don’t be afraid!” he spoke aloud, drawing me near.
Convincing himself that his words were for me.

He stopped and looked around,
For a crew of other fishermen,
hanging on invisible crosses:
Bragging of the Bass and Salmon they had stored away,
in buckets of ice last year.

Or was he listening to the creaking below our feet?
The groaning of scale,
When the lake weighed us out to see,
If like the grocer’s scoop of candy,
we were enough?
Or would we be the extra piece or two allowed
the favorite customers?

Father kept his quiet,
Until the groaning stopped.
But I could hear him drawing on his briar slow,
As I listened to the landing of the falling snow,
On his denin shoulders and cap.


When we started to move again,
He told me we were over the deepest part of the lake.
I asked him if this is what Jesus did.
He laughed and called me, “His best day off”, and put his pipe back in his mouth,
We walked along more quickly then,

“You shouldn’t be afraid son
Even though, you could fall in.
Sometimes, this is the chance you have to take,
If you want to go fishin’.”

WHILOM

We will never be as loved,
as we were then,
lucky us his children;
whom heaven chose this angel for,
and when our hearts adore,
his memory,
he will never be,
surrendered to this grave.