These old woods have gotten quiet
Darkened by clouds that won’t crack
Silenced by a muffling blanket
Invisible but felt
Heavy and oppressive
Rainfall is long overdue
Drought is spreading beneath the canopy
Branches bend in the increasing wind
Into little smiles beckoning outsiders
It still looks green from a distance
…
That sinking feeling sets in when I remember
Shrinking makes me better
Becoming smaller makes me greater
Taking up as little space as possible
It’s the best thing I can do
To remain in the correct place
The path to betterment
Requires me to repeatedly ask it
What I need to do to fit through the cracks
But how does one get smaller than this
.
May 4 – 5, 2025
Steadily creeping
Future unpredictable
Feels more familiar
Our eyes are the only stars
Under this blanket of nighttime pitch,
Yet we find each other here again and again.
Our delicate selves touch firmly, surely,
Tracing our merging outlines each night
In my dreams
.
May 3, 2025
I, who never pray,
Pray silently today
In my mind’s voice,
In my simple native English
Lying here alone on my side.
With no reverence in my posture
And only honesty in my heart
I make a wish,
Saying to any powers that be:
Damp heat in late spring:
Anger can’t last forever
Under smoke and ash
…
An idea, a wish, for a new chapter
That never gets written
Time is lost, love goes unanswered
And unanswered love
Burns through you
All the way into the ground
…
The last flickering flame was stamped on
Smothered and choked
We wave the last creeping tendrils away
As if swatting flies
…
On and on and on and on and on and on
I listen, praising myself internally
For remembering to keep my mouth shut
How smoother these cogs turn
By the grease of my silence
.
April 27, 2025
I expected rain, but it never came
Somehow, through that turbulent mix of…