I searched under dead leaves
Then in snowbanks
Then in the muddy farmers’ fields
Slick with damp autumn rain
I searched under my shared bed
Then on the highest bookshelves
…
A brother sets out
Chasing a runaway heart
Blazing through the night sky
A sister remains
Making a wish back home
On a shooting star
December 19 – 20, 2005
I’ll sit at the table.
I’ll eat the dinner, I’ll listen to the conversation.
I’ll unwrap gifts along with the others.
I’ll be there, but there’ll be moments where I’ll realize it will be a tiny bit different this time around.
…
Fear moves through me.
Anger moves through me.
Each will pause for a time before moving along.
Each will always return.
When they move through me,
I must remember:
They visit;
I do not become.
When they return again,
I must remember:
They are smoke and wind.
They come to me.
I am neither.
December 16 – 18, 2025
We once spoke of ashes, of cinders
left behind in lightning-ravaged woods.
You questioned how you would rise from
your forest floor.
…
I’m coughing.
A heart turns over, hot.
I’m choking…
Green with golden touch:
a jewel’s care teaches still
of love’s endless reach
(December 12 ’25 outing with a wonderful friend.)
The clouds roll and spill their essence
White-hot and frozen on these unkempt strands
It’s wet and strange and ignored
Half-blind in this storm I can’t see
Half-deaf in this hurricane I can’t name
….
Faces down the table:
eyes glancing, briefly curious.
Faces down the table:
both here and not here.
Faces down the table,
signaling discreetly:
all such mysteries to me.
…
How is it
that no matter how many curtains I draw
over every window I pass,
the dark can always find me?
…