Ghost Swing

Tire on a rope.

Head back and hair flying,

The echo of your laughter rings

Still in the thinning woods

As the leaves swing down,

Another layer of seasons

On the paths you explored,

Lightheaded and blazing with future.

A Few Minutes More

Reading in the theater of sunset, lost for a time

in brilliant turns of phrase and chilling similes,

i look back to the sky, and the world has shifted without me,

a few minutes unlike any other, gone forever, but then

there are a few minutes more, and a few minutes more,

and i shaill not let them slip away so easily.

The Clutch of Autumn

Caught in the clutch of autumn and quieter now

With the transient birds flown south and the finches

Going brown, with seeds blowing through the field

And all green things going to ground,

A settling now, an acceptance in the mists and vapors:

All things pass, all things come back around.

The Urge

This way out, old friend.

We may not get to where we're going,

But the going will be grand.

Indelible

She was the sunlight now,

But i couldn't understand a word she sang.

—Found in a pecha kucha by Terrance Hayes after Fela Kuti.

Asylum

Slow with the cold truth i drift

from the bee-loud field into the quiet woods,

dome going gold and shot with sky,

to the breath of new fire in the night-cold grate;

all dark solid trunks and gold-green boughs,

the forest gathers around the four sides,

guileless beauty with no self-regard,

no sense of position in a society of trees,

accepting my presence and accepting my past,

a foolish woodland man who lived his life

falling in love until the love was gone

and all that was left was the falling.

All the soft words of change change little,

and absence is the proof of it,

me and the fire by ourselves,

blue-tongued and drowsing

in this asylum for misplaced affections,

warm finally, nearly consumed.

News of the World

Chloe, four, has big news.

She had led me to a flower with a bee in it.

How do they get their babies? she wanted to know.

Eggs, my darling grandniece, like birds except

they hatch into worms, which eat and get sleepy,

and wrap themselves up in their beds,

and go to sleep, and wake up as bees.

Wide-eyed wonder for a moment, then,

"I have to tell Mom!" and off she ran

into the magic of the world she inherits.

Wealth Not Required

Click to appreciate.

The appreciation of life

Requires only gratitude

For the beauty of the world.