Impromptu

Strange song,
Your notes are lightening bugs at dusk:
A blink in the night littered with stars.
You deserve a place in the sky
But you live in the moment.
No chords are written down
Or words recorded.

Sound lasts for an instant
But somewhere between the earth and sky,
You live forever in me.
You were born with the curtain
And you die with its fall.
For your life�s beauty and brevity
I cry.

Poetic

Before I knew you, I wrote love
I wrote of adoration and infatuation
Poems about passion, or lack thereof
for I had yet to feel the sensation.

I realize now that all my poems
when written in a loving pen
No matter what the words or whims
Are prayers for you without amen.

And as all poems have their ends
Poetry's endings are prophetic
And as each prior poem portends
My love for you is poetic.

Perfect

We joke about our first date
being at McDonald's and sharing fries.
We watched movies in my dorm room
and talked until half past four.
That was the first I saw your eyes,
Blue and green like a coral reef from above.

We laugh about our first kiss,
how I teased you until you smiled
our eyeglasses clicked awkwardly
We took them off and felt our way.
That was the first my fingers felt your hair,
Dark, sandy blond though you still call it brown.

We now smile when we speak love.
The first time I was so shy to say.
We tried to make a word for in between
What not yet love but just almost.
That was the first time I fell in love
Real and awkward and utterly perfect.

Buttons

I collect buttons
when I see them on the ground
separated from their worn out purses
and haggard old winter coats.
Seeing them resting lonely on the sidewalk,
hard, cold, dirty and bare,
conjures images of dangling threads,
fraying edges, burning holes and broken connections.
What was once well loved fades to loose-ends
and their broken pieces litter my path.
What once held everything together
drop hopelessly for me to find,
to cup safely in my hands.
Now that it has come undone
I collect buttons
because each reminds me
that something else,
somewhere,
is falling apart.

Memento Mori

In the gully along the trail
Deer bones lay scattered, forgotten toys.
Picked clean of meat and worm devoured,
Set a snowy white in the sweltering June.

Deep inside the sun bleached skull,
The empty arroyo of the eyes
Examines the same small bit of ground
But all it sees is endless dirt.

Foliage hugs the skeleton close
Gripping the shards of deer remains
Grinds the bones into a fine dust
And to each their separate end:

The pulling of body back into earth
I, too, can feel it in my bones.

The Murder of Brady Alexander

A Red Chevy Tahoe
Kicks up dust on this chalky gravel road.
Two headlights struggle against the dust
and the aggressive darkness.
They kill the engine along side the canary grass.
The crickets smother the night to silence
in rural Arkansas.
Two males emerge dragging you behind.
This night was the last you ever saw:

When mortal metal pierced the air
You were too late to hear,
Already watching your body smoke
where neat holes leaked down your chest.

The two lights leave you with only shadows
while the crickets sing your requiem
and the canary grass dances but you can�t see,
Folded up in the middle of the road
As the chalky smoke settles around your corpse,
nothing is left to mark your grave
Apart from the gravel dripping red.

Knotted Hands

There�s a dusty dollhouse in the basement.
A birthday present for a grandniece
you knew was too young to know the value.
You made it with your hands,
Hands that used to know the wood.
Many growth rings later,
I wonder if you have forgotten how.
Do you miss the roar of the ban saw
or the rhythm as you whittled?
Your knuckles contorted,
branches twisting upward.
My favorites were the tulips
that fit in my small and clumsy hands.
You made them for Aunt Virginia.
I haven�t seen them since she passed.
Ash trees to ashes.
Sawdust to dust.
Hands that once bent nature,
Now Nature bends and leaves dusty,
like the dollhouse in the basement.