Any other way

Forget and forgive

Not the other way

Forward

Better to apologize

than ask for

Permission

Make sense

Of a million censors

One raises 

Voices

But acts alone.

There was a time 

of day

that just felt right

Now

is a different Time.

The sun sets

the sun rises

all the Same.

Image of Artwork credited by (Scan by NYPL), 'Sunrise or Sunset on Lake Champlain, NY' in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

crisis

Crisis:

(“a decisive point in the progress of a disease, 

that change which indicates recovery or death” Latin

also from krei-root (to seive), krinein, to separate to 

distinguish to discriminate-Greek)

jolted me awake, outside myself

only to find myself-upright-

reflecting inside squinting

the first S of this ultimate

silence in a feminine sunrise,

and savoring the final T

of the next fiery sunset,

                       this too shall pass, 

green flash-

I spin, and reel and feel

too thin, out of alignment,

this mis-a-line-meant

Crisis 

            was coming,
bones were showing

and there was much to do

about what cannot be undone

in one revolution
nor by
            coming back
to room temperature.

Painting by Ross Turner (1847-1915), "Sunset, Cape Ann, Mass.' c. 1861-1897) in Public Domain.

Two sol's

There is an ordinary old man,
I'm certain you must have seen him,
he walks the coastline casually
every morning
just before sunrise.
He wears a safari hat
which hangs on his back
in case he runs late
and the sun beats him home.
He seems retired.

There is a scruffy old man,
you must have noticed him
walking along the coast highway
every evening,
just before the sun sets down
the light for the night.
He wears different clothes
but has not groomed himself
in decades. I wonder
if he sleeps
or is grateful for rest.


Painting by Ester Almqvist, 'The Sawmill, December sun' c. 1914 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

First love, then night

The son

searches blindly in the thick shadows,

timid and thin, his alabaster skin 

fingering rays for warmth

where matters with heat may penetrate,

he lingered along

to feel the shapes and qualities

worth illuminating.

The son

gives off too much

light of himself,

but cools his burning core when worn

down from spinning out ideas, worries like water

for clouds.

Grey lightens the pressure of beauty in shades

of dilution.

The son

sets his gaze on the fine line,

balanced between now and then

an emerald spark, sometimes called Epiphany

flashes forward before

the embers burn themselves out

and all that fixation

loosens the belt of Venus

able to breath aloof in dusk.

The son

becomes sure

of being risen and having been 

roused, only to be caught 

in a brief glare, he spots 

glimmers of where love

lies and may be

beyond her dissolution. 

The son

will to morrow, who is

peaking at noon,

falls warmer than 

any moon who wanes

when the world was said 

to be done. 

Painting by Cornelis Lieste [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

How the ship went down

He wont go in, I asked him.
He said it is too c-c-cold.

It is February, someone said.

I thought it was warmer here,
that's what you said,

Spoke the brother man
I just met,
he then looked at
me.

He pretended to be misled
by the change in latitude.
Lightly making light
of this ceremonious process.

I looked around
for any familiar
faces.
The sun setting
cast a candle glow
on all of them.

The wind picked up
random pieces,
stirring us
salt and water
with mixed drinks.

Fifty-five and a half million lives lost
every year-two dozen ships sink.

"Relatively," I confessed,
unrelated to any
body.

And we were oceanside
all together,
a family,
not mine but with me doing this rite,

the ships sailed back to the harbor,
we all watched the pterodactyls pass
hugging the shoreline,
then seagulls in vees
watching us hug back.

We saw him now
scale down the riprap,
clutching the carved wooden box
in his left hand,
the waves rushed in to
meet him first

and he did not look back at us
looking over the edge
once.
He would not hear
the group of us
cheering
this man, these two men in the sea

fighting to stand,
fighting to let go
the sand, the ashes

and I saw that he was sobbing.
Silently, softly,
his shoulders shook
against the crisp horizon
in the last light
of that day.

He would have wanted it that way
is all his golden child could
grasp onto long enough
to say...

(This evening now gone,
peaceful bones, now resting deep
I thank the tide
for the grainy souls
it keeps
moving us
to live
without
wasting any more time)


Painting by William Bauly Lithography by Sarony, Major & Knapp [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Simple sunset sought

This is not life-it is living
hot for a time
wet for a while
until salt only remains...

the ocean swallows us
wholeheartedly we wait at
her ledge at sundown
remixing our urge to merge

in gold lights flecks flicker
a flame bathed in warmth
dazzling its prisms by hint
of change for photophores


Photo credit: By United States Navy [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.