For Grace

Modus Vivendi

Beyond the peripity of fortunes, you were born,

Rich in time and love, your seasons framed

By the twin thrones of Sun and Moon,

By the intimate discovery of butterflies

In the green heat of wild fields,

Episodes of laughter and fireflies on a summer night,

The wind's rustle of dried leaves on autumn roads,

And the filigree of frost on a windowpane.

Linga Imperfectus

Your tongue will learn the rapture of syllables,

Anxious to describe the movement of things.

Puzzled by words that won't fit, how can you hold

A mirror up to the feeling of water slipping

Through your fingers, and the quality of air

After the rain? We will grasp your meaning

If you let it suffice to praise everything

Around the one thing that holds you in ecstacy.

Tempu Fugit

You cannot be the passive witness of time's march.

Already, the procession of days have caught

You up in their swell. Time's hands start slowly,

Gathering speed and grace as they go, and you too will learn

To avert your gaze as the hours pass, one by one,

Irretrievable, into oblivion.

Leann on the shore

Barefoot and alone, she stood,
An element among the shining
Rhythms of water and sand,
Where the waves move into the shallows,
Edged with lace and salty sound.

She knelt in the pale sand,
Her sea-filled eyes lowered
From the new light moving,
Weightless on the heavy water.
Her finger wrote as she waited,

Not in vain. The gull flew beyond her,
Mastering his meaning in the morning air.
Her mind roamed over the lavender haze
That rose and fell over the dappled water,
Waiting for a silence that could endure
The gull’s cry.

The End of Rush Hour on Summer Solstice

The sound of passing traffic,
If only for a moment,
Resembles waves rushing to sand,
As Mozart’s only violin concerto
Chronicles the pointless excesses and austerities,
And the flame fades into the cobalt hour.

Always, the traffic moves like a hinged serpent,
Against constellations of blue cornflower,
And the sky hung like an unfulfilled prophecy
Over cityscapes and graveyards, waiting.

The bright song of swallows,
The ripe fruit uneaten.
This is the center of the year
From which the days pivot
And the months turn
into past and future.

An occasional car splits
From the group onto an exit, into a slender life,
As clouds gathered as on a dark stage,
Releasing raindrops in a chaos of rhythm.