Valleys behind me,
memorialized beaches —
gardens still to come.

Spirits and wishes,
falling at my feet each day,
sitting beside me.

Under glass, under
the feel of January,
birds somewhere, flying.

My box of fortunes,
just things I wanted to hear
to create belief.

She craves the music—
moon over St. Cecelia,
saint of a cold month.

In the velvet void—
January sky, songless,
days pass, ears empty.

The taproot knows it:
sending life out above ground,
living in the dark.

The light on this beach
is still on me years later,
caught in these grasses.

Lost fraternity:
one needs the other one more,
one gives it away.

The resolve that’s lost,
the songless days and grey skies,
there is no right path.

Wabi sabi: imperfect

Here and then they’re gone,
these things aren’t really mine,
like stars in my hands.

Wabi sabi: impermanent

I am not complete,
I will never be complete,
like a breaking sky.

Wabi sabi: incomplete

Moon out at midnight,
wound up in restless dreaming,
I imagine it.

The December grey,
in this last week of the year,
trying to find light.

There is light inside
the pull of the hidden moon,
the flowing river.

An alternate life:
the trying for something more,
seeking and searching.

We walk the river,
a bufflehead swims and dives,
we find trees chewed down.

Sunrise behind clouds,
the shortest day of the year,
light because of dark.

Day after solstice,
we creep back towards the light,
the seed in our minds.

A bittersweet bloom,
some of the only color
on this cold, grey day.