white lily

Nighthawks, Chianti and the moon

keep me and my mother company

settled rigidly side by side

books brought but unread

praying for companionship

sharing a plate of cut fruit 

laid out on the brick patio

Guilt as a goddess lounges near

wringing both her hands 

she refills our glasses 

red and ceremonious, quaffed 

we swoop in and out

admiration and bafflement

isolated in our search to love the other 

between us a heavy vase bears a white lily

the shadows move as they always do

crude fate

Crude fate I follow you

ruddy faced and beaming 

over the top of bright headlights

 

poised, reaching through kelp beds

learning to swim among the tangle 

off-gassing in the sunny shallows

 

cantaloupe low moon slice

dripping over the darkened trees 

we throw back our eager mouths

Any day now

 

Eyes of trees stare 

through the window  

peeled birch skin exposes 

tender yellow layers 

to the grey cast sky

 

I rifle through the leaves 

of the internet 

clicking  

searching for any meaningful 

echo

oak

sycamore

spruce

overlapping tangible beings

meanwhile

 

the meaning of work eludes me 

floating in this heavy bog

to make money

to fill bellies

god it's a swampy thing

pain as a door

joblessness as a door

love as a door

or maybe I mean 

a tree

 

not a flat dead slab 

on hinges 

but a rooted living wood 

which climbs 

itself into the sky

the branches extend in the cold

I know they grow 

cell by cell

the sap will soon flow just 

give it time

big picture

so much of life dissolves

into half-remembered pools 

my inner environment becomes

a planet of mist, moss

only certain smells 

clear the haze

of the past

and still

 

I can't ever hold it all

 

I want to unroll my visions

emotions

experiences

lay them out to study them

a treasured tapestry

read the smudged faces

touch the stuff of it