dying

I cannot do,
but wait for a snip of wind,
to amputate the cold dread
spreading through my bones.

these bones are not mine,
they are yours. you may break
them then fix them,
then break them once again.

the ligaments in my fingers
bend with the light that hits them,
the iced torture seething
from within a darkness in you.

I am okay.

But when you press my heart,
when you pull the strings apart
and braid them in ways I know not,
I am not okay.

and so my lord has a wind with Him,
and I am waiting, counting the days
I live in hurtful censure,
until I can feel it against my skin,
breathe it into my lungs,
and forget this lingering pain.

yellow

it is cold
where I’m standing,
watching
your train slowly
pull out the station,
leaving trails of
smoke and sorrow
in the air.

you are facing forward:
comfortable seat
and engaging reading material.

I trudge back home,
my worn boots letting in
the wetness of winter.

it is dark
where I’m standing,
watching
your train steadily
staying its course
with my exhaustive
longing for
a cowardly traveler.

The Station of Longing

There is on this journey
a station of longing, an endless longing for He
who blew into the
zephyr of heaven that removes
all distress in one gust.

We arrive at the station
and slowly build staircases
to His mercy, climbing for years
until a day where all sadness
is removed from our hearts,
and any lurking pain of injustice
is replaced by contentedness.

It is He who created this endless longing,
who made the heart a vessel
for the deepest love,
to cradle the breadth of living
and give birth to beautiful words.

We will not cease singing praises of the One
who fashioned an endless longing,
who assembled houses of rich brocade,
coral and pearls for
our outstretched palms.

There is longing in this heart
for You, a mercy
that knows no bounds,
and for an endless peace
by the words of forgiveness
You have taught me.

keep breathing

we stood on boulders
looking into the ebbing stream
and towering escarpments surrounding us,
painted with the red and orange
bristles of autumn.

I felt I could breathe
the unadulterated air without caution,
without fear of my lungs’ disapproval
or that the air wasn’t pure enough.

we climbed out, clawed our way
up the mountain and my lungs felt
constricted, the world was clenching
its fists around them, drawing the air out slowly.

it numbed my mind
for a single moment
and I tumbled down the difficult path.
you were unaware my body was at the will of
the mountain’s gravity.

And I was stranded, my body limp
at the bottom of the gorge, save for
the slight rise and fall of my chest.
the air was quiet as I lay there
until my body regained its strength
and rose
to darkening skies, and cooling winds.

a landslide of time
pours over those steep hills, but
what I am waiting for does not come.
and as you make your way out
without glancing back,
all I can do
is keep breathing.

my traveler

I was caught,
absorbed in the crinkly tones
of your voice as you sang to me
over uncertain phone lines.
it made you happy to sing, even though
you knew not to quit your day job.

you were
my traveler, never quite stayed in one place
for more than a week.
you liked it that way, and I lived vicariously
through your adventures; gallivanting through fields of
weeds, praying in abandoned lots
with the mountains on the horizon
or in cornfields that stretched as far as your vision.

There were those sneakers in the airport,
spurious meals at questionable restaurants,
anticipated mailed packages with
carefully hand-written notes falling out of the
upturned envelopes.

if I saw you in heaven, I would
recognize the marks of a traveler in you,
the latent fatigue and
furrowed brows, mussed hair,
the weakened smile, trying to keep it together
between flights.

there were fleece blankets to wrap up
the cold days, scrabble pieces lined up in rows -
rainy-day words that were simple and precise.
my traveler always found the words to mask being tired,
or hopeless,
took those square letters and spelled it out for me,
uncomplicated.

it takes some effort to keep a traveler
curled up inside your fist, but it was done.
I am reminded of the bigger picture,
that it was time for my traveler to continue on,
to leave this sedentary soul
and disappear into the distance.

I am wax, you are flame.

a candle flickers on the reading table,
that lone waxy emblem;
a symbol of love diminishing with hours.

the flame burns, beautiful and gracious,
a captivating fire that we cannot help but be lured by.
its mystery, its beckoning silence
perturbs the edges of our consciousness.

for in so innocent a thing, in so
touching and riveting a dancing flame,
the fire eats up the wax, causes it to drip
and slowly ease its way down
the side of the candle.

I pool near the bottom, leaving
dried residue and a pleasant odour
of burning.

on giving up

the pathway to my heart is thorny, dusty and unclear.
the bristles caught on your clothes
and scaly branches left thin scratches on your arms and legs.
you became tired of traveling
and so rested for some days along the way.

there,
after little rumination, decisions were made.
it was too difficult,
too labouring,
too long a journey.
and you
had already wasted enough time.
you left the path,
and your body healed its scratches and fatigue.

the road becomes less traveled,
the traveler takes another path.

seclusion

there is a firefly brightness amongst
your thick brown hair, lambent and
painting the strands silver and white.

but you are unsettled,
I am getting old
and buy black dyes to contradict time,
to quell the burgeoning signs in your body
that tell you to slow down.

lines of poetry are not all you study,
a developed crumpling of skin beneath your eyes
gets more attention.
You have ceased laughing for fear of
laugh lines.

I am sad for you, and try to show
you fireflies
hovering around street lamps, the breathing
of unopened flowers before dawn,
short words of poetry penned in seclusion.
but you cannot see these,
blinded by worry of imminent death.

I am alone in the dark
under faint street lights before dawn,
writing a page of inky sunlight I hope you will read
before mourning.