Where all our colors are bled

Ocean, like a silver armor

reflecting the diverted glare of the sun.

Ocean, like an interpretation

searching under surfaces of light and dark.

Who will congregate

to pass through this state

like shadows admiring each other’s form?

The wind offers a fleeting glimpse

of that which is intimate with it.

Eyes trained on horizons

we wait patiently for something from the deep

to break the calm of the surface.

Fins breach, the sun-swept

disjointed reach to the sky.

One moment, one ripple

a wave from the inner depth

peels through the elemental cleft

to be submerged and sealed over again.

Join them out there beyond the sky

caring not where one is led

the sea is one great stream

where all our colors are bled.

When we returned

the waves broke spray over lava walls.

The day had a perfect cloud cover

of light and shadow

that splintered the open ocean,

all the fishing lines were illuminated.

Ducking beneath them,

the sea was warm to our steps,

penetrable to our grasp,

soluble to all that would drain,

When we returned

we could not distinguish between the spray and the rain,

from the safety of the sane

and that forbidden place

where the mind is a mist

and we drift without footprints.

Take from the prose that arose from a somber recess

but could never disclose the sense of infinite space

crumbling into itself

like a pinch of ash from a bleak sky

or a fallout of stars in the rubble of silence.

A Stitch in the Night

Trapped together on this island

under this canopy of light

a stitch in the night of ripped denim

interlocking coils of rain

unfolding from our will

never static, stagnant nor predictable

it’ll give us only distance

residue on the next morning

tears from the ceiling we’ve constructed

without the strength to hold it back.

Pools offer glimpses of the sky’s infinity

the energy expressed in mist

cloaked in myth

the shadows that hug the cliff

are too temporal to leave symbols.

Cave lapses, I’ve been here before,

on another coast, along another shore.

There was another shade

another penetrating wave

while foam cascades

over another glistening throne.

Each moment

like one great gasp of a white-capped wave

pounding infinite fragmentary diamonds

upon the waiting pockets of the earthen fold.

The Point, the surf, the sky-reflected shore,

the hazy drastic horizon’s blur

the child’s fantastic dreams

laying there condemned to water

the ocean slowly encroaching

this half-formed crustacean.

I’ll take you in, then set you free again.

Tides are endless creamy seas,

great white horse-driven waves going static

in their asylum of broken whispers,

nocturnal emissions I pray I’ll always hear.

Clouds are Veils

Something as light as a tiny flame

balancing on top of a candle.

Something as languid as a leaf

falling from the heights of canopied trees.

Something vagrant like the breeze

advancing from misty peaks

dancing across the road it speaks

of all that green borders cannot hold of the mystery.

With a new lease on the sky

drifting by in myriad forms

of makeshift places to hide

thoughts that walk like unsheathed velvet.

Its more akin to pulling a smooth sheet back.

Felt? Yes forgotten, in foreign places

It is formed from the umbilical worm

of a forbidden fruit

or in the rotten contours of pursuit.

We’re here suspended like puppets

filling the spaces with questions

with words like failing limbs

hung up on awkward silences.

All these disparate lives

interlocked with meaningful overlapping

with minimal effort

they make room for what’s binding.

Preserve these strands of affection

observe these hands of correction

soaked in a certain sunlight

glistening that which is hidden

a small insignificant footprint

follows these expressions

governed by the movement of waves

these clouds are veils of the same fabric

dividing our lives

and when the flimsy raft wears thin

domesticated and imprisoned

through small drifts you remain renewed

if ultimately unprepared to sever yourself

from shore for too long.

The worker of stained glass

 

The worker of stained glass

Your large hands, folded and at rest

course and weathered to suggest

the myriad ways you held us all together.

Shot through with veins like pipes

you worked with all your life

in half-formed buildings

or in a dark basement

hunched over your desk and craft,

you provided endlessly.

 

I was always impressed

that working man’s hands like these

could be so graceful and precise to plant seeds

to fasten tiny shades of light

to a garden of glass

where luminous flowers bloom in chandeliers

to outlast any dark or drought.

To your hands I pay homage

those hands that built the cottage

crafting a family to place inside

those unique borders and lines.

Each piece of varying shade and hue

in time will become the glue

that holds the whole pattern together,

each is necessary.

 

I’ve spent these last few nights

looking into the light of your lamps

and all their watery eyes.

I realized that if only there was enough glass

to contain the stain

of all the loss and pain death leaves behind,

perhaps the light coming through

could guide from within you

like glittering shards

from our collective windows

shining paths in our empty yards,

paths that will lead us through the lonesome winter

to the warmth of being together.