Gold

I sift through the words as if mining for gold,

watching the coarse sand slip between my fingertips

and concentrating on the continuous flow of grainy letters.

The occasional precious stone grazes past, leaving

a light mark on my knuckle as if to proudly proclaim

“I was here.”

Closing my fist before it has a chance to escape,

I hold on so tightly that I am numb to the red rivers

flowing down the lifelines of my palm in tortuous streaks.

Each rock, sharp and uncut, falls beneath my skilled fingers

and I chip away at the edges, one atom at a time,

until an iridescent shine gleams from its smooth surface,

a labor of lucent love cradled in my calloused hands.

The Things We Leave Behind

Identified by the marks of her own fingerprints,

the places where she had gone, and where she had left,

blurred into one and became all the same.

The rumpled sheets of the flowery bedspread are cold

and crinkled into a crescent where she once lay

her small frame, her body embraced by daisies

as white as the snow on her front doorstep in the middle of winter.

The swing still creaks fondly in the backyard, a puddle of

dirty rainwater catching the reflection of the sun’s rays momentarily

as the clouds drift onwards, forgetting to take their shadows with them.

Swirling winds wrap around the lone pairs of socks still hanging out to dry,

weaving through the woolen fabric as smoothly as the needle in a mother’s soft hands.

There are still days when I cannot separate past from present,

when I look back and see a flicker of myself leaving wet footprints on the

gray concrete leading up to the pillars of the front porch

or sense the unraveling of my sweater as I pass under the maple,

the thin threads dangling from the bare branches

and leaving behind a path back home.

Fall

Day falls into night, and I fall into thoughts of sleep.

The leaves drift along the river like little life rafts,

and I hang on to them gingerly for fear that

they might crumble under the weight of my mind.

Faeries illuminate the blackboard sky with drawings of light,

tracing each other’s tiny frames, glowing, cascading,

sparks showering the damp earth beneath my bare feet.

Cold and warmth combine, hands meeting, fingers touching,

palms facing upwards to catch the dying stars in their last

fleeting moments of pure and wholesome light.

I am waiting for fall to rise again –

to wrap myself around the hearth where the fire

once wavered in a hypnotic trance

and melt away.

Emptied

here is where i will lay my words down to rest,

sunk deep within the heart of the woods.

they will stick like burrs to the coats of the hunters and

taint the mouths of the hunted with the taste of pennies.

when the clouds finally fall into heaps of weeping mothers,

the tears that strike my cheeks will hollow out tiny holes,

preserving ink pots for the day when i run out of things to say.

the clashing metal will resonate with the intensity of a thousand

electric volts and the ground will swallow me whole,

leaving me with nothing but emptiness in my thoughts.

MIA

my muse disappeared on new year’s eve,

packed its suitcase with a decade’s worth of stories

and told me that it was time to go.

i clutched at its worn coattails and pleaded for it to stay,

but my muse shook its head just once and vanished,

dissipating into the smoke of the blossoming fireworks

like Houdini with a death wish.

misery clouded my mind in the ensuing months

and i waded through those eternal somedays

scared to even touch the thin white sheets

that laced my desk like the veils of corpses.

i still remember the glorious days

when the rain storms would cease

and my muse would step lightly into the sun,

leading me with a hand as smooth as its voice.

to this day, i still don’t understand how

my head can be filled with empty thoughts,

nostalgic for memories that never lived

and mourning the loss of someone who was never here.

We are still here.

On this day we stand,

unwavering, yet

with trembling hands,

stricken by the sound

of shattering hearts

as we watch the tragedy unfold

moments after it starts.

We toss away the trivial matters

and pick up the remains,

inhaling each fragile sentence with as

much strength as we can maintain.

If the next word,

or the next breath,

should be our last,

we know that the future

will continue despite the past.

We forget the good –

we are consumed by the bad,

disheartened by the calamity,

frightened, torn,

sad.

 

But this is humanity

and it has not lost all

hope.

The sirens are no match

for the hushed prayers

that cope

with the chaos

surrounding and

feeding our fears

because here the solace

comes from our tears.

We are still here,

and we will not turn away.

The beating of our hearts

reminds us that

on this day,

we are all humans,

none the more

and none the less,

and if only faith keeps

us living then may we

hope for the best.

Thin-Skinned

You say I’m thin-skinned like it’s

a bad thing,

as if the lilacs and lilies flourishing

underneath my skin are not

sacred relics from the rose thorns

along this path.

For even though it does not take long

for the cold to seep

into my marrow

or for the ice to freeze the blood

in my veins,

the glaciers drift through the ocean,

steadfast and invincible.

 

You say I’m thin-skinned like it’s

a bad thing,

but I know better because I feel your

sadness as if it were mine.

The sparrows are muted by the

deafening snowfall

and winter closes in on your mind

but here within my swirling winds

spring has declared its arrival.

The flowering vines intertwine

my spine like a trellis and

underneath my thin skin,

I am blossoming anew.

Post Mortem

Tonight I’m in the mood for poetry

I think, so I smooth a sheet of

thin white paper onto my desk.

But the translucence reminds me

of your skin against the glowing moon

and I can’t bear to etch my thoughts

underneath your shoulder blades.

 

Tonight I’m in the mood for music

I think, so I strum a minor chord

on the strings of my guitar.

But the resonance reminds me

of the way your voice trembled

when you pondered the inevitability of

your descent into oblivion.

 

Tonight I’m in the mood for tea

I think, so I sink a sugar cube

into the steaming murky green.

But the bittersweet taste reminds me

of your warm breath on my cheek

caressing my lips on the Monday morning

before you whispered goodbye.

 

Tonight I’m in the mood for stargazing

I think, so I step into the cool night

and peer up into the darkness.

But the twinkling stars above remind me

of the last time I saw your eyes

light years away and slowly

diminishing in radiance.