Right now, heaven smells like hell,

a sensory overload for a confused girl,

now a shivering mother. A calloused tradesman –

now second-fiddle father to a waking dream.

The day before the days

before winter’s satin gloss,

driftwood glimpses neatly hide away in

a gathering pageantry.

Tightly tucked in folds

of ancient wind with pockets out-

turned, falls the Fall,

fallen…and begins a new tale.

Heaven’s sudden smile, casts

a long and shattering light

on the darkening days –

bringing the iron-gilded hope

of dawn’s new Dawn.

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Picture found here

Bequeathed to me are quill and quine,

a thousand hillsides’ worth.

No greater gesture could, for mine,

elicit thanks, henceforth.

So stiff the hand to wrench and grab

so stunted, feet, to trudge;

the weary eye’d think all life drab,

one’s paradisal grudge.

When hope is stirred, not wit or whim,

a fire, too, is stirred.

‘Tis then the soul her nurture finds,

ahunger’d less for food than word.

“Hope is the thing,” she said,

that one thing most real for one who looks.

Her lips, so full in Heaven’s unmeasured smile,

speak outward still to a land more rich for the kiss.

“He ate and drank the precious words,” she intones –

a wiser breath slicing through the caustic

din of monoxidic madness. Someone sees

what, in its dim appearing, shows itself bright.

“If I can stop one heart from breaking,” we hear

her moan, the pained and paining alike her cast.

Though hell would be her suitor, more suited

to Heaven the language of this child.

Let us then lean into the dawning day, delight

our closest friend and, as she might urge us,

look East where all is birthing and good is free.

For “none can avoid this purple.”

Image found here

Many times and seasons pretend to sway our way,

and drop their hints of monotony – but fail.

Few are the banks of shuddered-down snow

on pathways already hidden from our feet.

Many are the pedals on wayward flowers

refusing a lesser share of their own song.

Few are the words ill-spoken from lips

more accustomed to smile or kiss.

Many the moving notes from the still page,

to still the ravaged breast will come.

Few, or none, the children, playground-found,

whose voices, loud and ardent, disappoint.

Many weary eyes are pointed upward where

hills, apart and distant, croon.

Few there be to quell the wish of

night-fallen star-gazers seeking.

And altogether, met and threaded down,

in aching stillness from the heart that John heard.