I’m reading every word I can get my heart around
Hoping that someplace someone knows this
Secrets are lonely things.
And so I pull all of my poetry from my shelves
Hoping that maybe one day, if I palm enough dog-eared pages
There you will be.
I wondered…
If I wrote enough sentences and fragments and words
Perhaps then they might join hands to form a road
One from here to elsewhere
Far away, to a hazy place I’d never know
But as I whispered goodbye
With tears frozen to my skin
I realized, much too late
I had written right around the world
Back again, and here you are
Knocking on the door
With your hands chilled and your soft smile
Still warm enough to sweeten a dusk into dawn
And right then I know
For a reason I’ll never understand, I’ll reach out my palms
Invite you back.
To sit by the fire,
While the snow hushes on by.
Can I be a ghost with you?
Let rainstorms and sun moats comb my muddied hair
While I sing hush-a-bye hymns to the aching earth
From orchid meadows where dew is wine on bare skin
We’ll haunt the hallowed halls of hearts
Run whispered hands along every fracture; every fault line
Make exhalations echo into
Canyons who ignite symphony from song
As wandering breath, great roots of red oaks
Will make lost a lovely somewhere to be
Velvet of fawn footfalls, harmonic with the sigh
Of clover fields at dawn awaiting
The blush of beginning
Curl me into every corner of this world
Let memory hold hope that exists only as truth
In aura arias and a warm hand home.
I don’t know how to write beautiful things anymore
I chase ghosts in hopes of handing them the dark
They need it more than I do,
It’s the only way they’re seen.
Heaven knows how far we’ve come
From headlights blinking through deep dark pines
Sing me straight to unfinished
And leave me there
Where love and lilting sentences run on
Have you ever seen stars in the sand?
There are sweet tea shores at midnight
Where the skies sit veiled by thunderheads and haze
There, intricately invisible creatures
Glow when kissed
By rough summer soles and searching palms
Maybe the sea
Settled and sweeping beneath canopies of clouds
Misses the star shine glow of above
A trillion miles away
Somehow still carrying comfort and curiosity
Along brilliant beams of brightness
So it searches somewhere within
Lights up its shores like luminescent skies
Waiting in wonder for morning light
To break and bring anew
If the dictionary could speak,
I don’t think the words would be in order.
Sometimes when it is quiet
I wander all the way till wonder
Open the shutters to that quiet place
Where still
The hush-a-bye bright babble
Of familiar
Of wet
Of cool
Of winter waters
Breath held between shaking prayer hands
Trying to find warmth
In grasping at skipping stones
Like lifelines
Like hold onto the brevity before
Like pearls of little lovely, lettered words
Like love
I cut the forest down
Red clay caking calves
Moss climbing straight along the south-sides
Branches breaking, built a house
I called it every word I could find to say
Beautiful
Sat on the rooftop, wandering all the way
To quieter yet
Traced rings of tree trunks under blistered palms
Pausing on the sliver
Where I first spoke my own name
In sweet silly summer-camp cries
In kisses
In snowflake trees
In things after - unspoken, unnamed, unknown
I couldn’t find the word to call it
Nameless, burned it down
Nameless, stitched this melody to my skin
Hoping somebody, somewhere, somehow
Would open their mouths and speak
What I dared not say
Sometimes still, I go,
Where wheels turn too fast for snow
Painting the dark miles with laughter
Playing pretend with things too big to hold,
Like God
Like Ghosts
Like little pieces of promise
Like amens
Drenched in courage-cloaked naivety
A smile in sweet silence
The bridge to where wet boots muddy diner booths
Is still what it was
A warm place
To be still
To be strong
To be broken
To be
So, with the last little lullaby,
Sometimes when it is quiet
I touch where the forest embers have settled so sweet
One hand on the saplings sprung anew
Hear the thrush breath ring again, fill lungs with lilac air
Hand-to-hand, here,
With shining, stony charcoal bones
Draw something reminiscent and new
Call it every word you can find to say,
Beautiful
Beautiful,
Beautiful is the blush
Left here
Watch,
See it paints pastel
Through citrus skies above rooftops
Where I sit and smile and sing
And sometimes wander to wonder
Softly wish well,
Thank you.
When you see no difference between sea and sky
Only darkness knowing your name
Pepper the world in strands of stars
The fire that built your bones
From the ocean’s depths to the shadowed moon
Bright constellations sing in lilting light
Their melody holding you far too precious
To brand your heart in hollow words
Hold embers close to echoes
Whisper too soft to hear,
Call me brave.
Look up.
The very canopy under which you exist is larger than you.
The soil beneath your aching soles stretches for farther than your arms could ever hope to envelop.
You are small.
Do not let that frighten you.
Allow the big, grand world to take you in.
The moon hangs in clouds soft as birthday candle breath
Breath hangs in the air lingering on hope to return to the warmth of my chest
You can tell the world what I wished for,
It has already come true.
Clad in ferocious domesticity
She will care so hard it blisters her soul
Knowing full well the calluses
Make it hard to call herself "pretty"
I know that you’re afraid
I am too
When the wind comes rushing into your open window
And the rain turns your lashes into piano keys
Close your eyes to play the only song you have left
Open your arms and hold the storm as though it’s familiar.
When we're in those woods together
I feel my feet ache to the tiptoe tune of wind on rocks
Moonshine hush on fallen logs
Where we rest our heavy heads and headstrong hearts
I surrender my skin to the soil
My thoughts to the wonder
Let me go.
Daydreams slip from your fists like pennies
Dripping copper sunbeams to light
The places you first forgot
When did your lamplight leave my skyline?
All the trees died in the lightning
Even the ones shouldering green
And we met in the valley
Where I lost you
In-between
The nonsense of brilliance lingered
In the evergreen
Where you’d been trying to trace maps
You forgot how to read
Between the
Blush of
Sweet wine
And burnt coffee
Barefoot march
Through the trees
Cradle eyes
Watch over me
Head held high
Rosy cheeks
Starlight peels
Through bitter breeze
I’ll show you places
You thought you’d lost
Soft light and faces
You cradled, forgot
Between the
Raised voices calling
Your comfort to bed
Well stop here,
Sleep well,
Rest your tired head.
When I met you the poetry
That once domino-ed from my fingertips
Flew like flocks of sparrows
From the aching bones of willow trees
I try to write you an epic
And instead stand up to pour another cup of coffee
I wish that I could craft something
That would echo off the sunspots on your shoulder
Syllables that seemed sweet in dreaming
Can't catch the butterflies in my stomach each time I walk through the door
I don't know how to write the tiptoed bubble of our laughter
When we're dancing across the kitchen floor in sock feet
Words never felt so hollow
As when asked to presuppose
The entirety of
My favorite verse