I hope you feel the hush of resounding
Nothing more and nothing less
Than the infinite the impenetrable the immaculate
Honey,
the woods are so still tonight.
She had a love blooming in her belly
Riper than an orange
Everything that could have been
Lingering sweetness
Untasted on your tongue
Your footfalls in bare rooms
Windowsills balancing places
Behind a sweating glass
Miles from where I first drew
Words that promised you full
Still-frame wisps wrought on ancient wood
Freckled with the dust of palms
That never quite touched
Closet wishes bled onto the synchronicity
Of wristwatches past bedtimes
Snowstorm cemeteries and the hush
The sound of nothing and everything
Cascading onto all there already, always was
White echoes in midnight-bright forests
The stillest moment I ever saw
Headlights flooding sleepy streets
Stale coffee warming hands never held
Stage fright songs singing softly
Searching for truth
Between the lamplights and home
Keep me in your pocket
Like treasures returned
Words I wish never left my lips
Blurred to broken
As my brittle bones
Warm haunted halls
Lit with James Taylor
Coupling a secret too sweet to share
Sweet as nectarine honey
Blooming in bellies
Goodnight, ghosts.
To the girlhood bridges
Soaked in summer sun
Where dewy moss met wet wood,
Certainty stood in the kiss of insect legs on copper waters
Long young years saw days reflected
In little laugh-lines
Drawn by the breezy ballet of tiger lilies,
Drenched in light combing pines and a whole lot of grace
Silently, these secrets of the world unfurled themselves
Like the bodies of ferns so green they were gold
I held my hand to your shadow even then
Wondering if that was how I would know you best
August-bleached daydreams no longer linger
Atop liquid hinges of tomorrow
Your laughter this morning, is a canyon wall echo
Filling pauses once pocketed like pennies
Our gully courses copper rivers through its belly
Sanding rickety rock to smooth skipping stones
All this life and its brightness
Ever always wandering towards hazy sweet seas
With attics embroidered by roots of lilies and red oaks
Immaculately, immortally, imperfectly
Our bodies temper tirelessly
Bending beneath the soft weight of water
Now I know,
This is how I love you best.
I saw a farmhouse in the country
White paint on wood
Birch trees shedding their skin
Years and honey-warm afternoons
I ran through a meadow there
That home nestled like a baby bird
The windows there glittering
Brighter than childhood chapels
I touched the tops of the ferns
To feel anything at all
Reached and waited,
For you to hold on.
Do you remember the night we found God?
The night was so still, the air was so hot
You held my hand and together we cried
Stitching together our own lullaby
So hold my hand,
Together we’ll cry
Break out the whiskey,
Apologize
For words said too soon and words left unsaid
Words brought to life by a life on the mend.
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.