HOPE

If one could count a billion stars
Or count the sands beside the sea
Then time would heal a million scars
And live to tell the times for thee

If two could sing the songs of ages
And find the secrets of this life
Too dumb we'd count the wisest sages!
And find that life was filled with strife

But in your arms are no equations
Nor peaks the mountains dare contend
For hand in hand are kings and nations
And in a single breath, their end

For three could find the rhymes of others
And at their end they find your Truth
That life is like the gift of mothers
And counting is the songs of youth

When you toss your final coin
and roll the dice just one last time
eggs of doubt so newly spawned
the need to stall, the marks that sign
 
My stars, are they not aligned
scratching like a chicken
for a grub that I might find
in green moss that sticks like lichen
 
A fresh dawn, where day lay hidden
omens, swing the pendulum
wait at the lights, the red not switching
hitchhike from the desert sun
 
pestilence in a year that's gone
a marathon, the breath it's shortness gums
now, now the time for needs furlong
the finish tape or the starting gun
 
Look to mother nature, not deny
push the boat out from the shore
a small trickle that will edify
 breeze to find a safe harbour  
 
 
 
 

Her mighty skin is basked in wisdom,
bones soaked in wondrous prestige.
She’s like the essence of love:
delicate like a fresh patch of snow
and strong like an arctic fox
whose pale fur is winter-kissed,
a mess of snow and light.
She swiftly glides through the night,
tail swaying in the wind,
her piercing eyes ready for the hunt.
Oh, how to find a love so hidden?

She glides through the day,
her gait risen like reborn plants.
She is a Dahlia flower in and out.
Her petals curve upwards and out,
open to the world all around.
They reach for the sun; these
friendly sun-kissed buds,
bathed in wondrous warm colors,
reach towards the sky because
she knows she is worth more
than the ground below her.

  
“I see my Marianne walkin’ away”
   
   
there’s a song my parents played  
when i wouldn’t settle as a newborn  
they say within the first few notes  
i immediately began to fall asleep  
every single time  
    
maybe it was the frequency  
in sync with the vibrations of my cells  
like a prophecy  
“so many people have come and gone”  
maybe my centre just knew    
this was my song  
it was my life ready to happen  
heartbreaks and ever rolling home    
foretold, and my utter peace    
in the telling  
   
maybe it coincides with how    
my mantra has always been  
to love and accept transience    
to understand that everything    
is changeable  
though that part has only gotten harder  
if i’m honest  
 
“their faces fade as the years go by”  
   
it’s more than just a feeling  
having weevils wriggle so deep    
into my stomach lining and up my throat  
as i stand perfectly present    
amongst pieces of a life long passed  
the very memory rejecting me  
an intruder    
on a patch of time and space  
that was never mine for keeping  
and does not want me back  
   
i’ve learned well, now  
how time is borrowed  
   
   
-----  
   
   
“I closed my eyes…”  
   
kneading a handful of sand  
felt the earth’s rotation  
having watched daylight    
disappear    
neatly over the edge of the world  
let a breath of wood-fire sit in my lungs  
just a little longer    
over muted, happy voices    
not missing me  
the energy of a perfect moment  
transmuted into the dreams  
always half-hoped    
i’ll see again someday  
   
   
“...and she slipped away”