6/21/2023 – hold

I would hold to you
Through the darkest night
Through the hardest storm
Through the coldest winter
For I would need you, too

6/20/2023 – a haiku

I won’t cut grasses
For that which grows between them
May bloom brightly yet

Let no man nor woman nor child
Be ever made to act as if
Their lives are owed to any but themselves

I wonder after those I know no more
And whether they are wond’ring after me

I lit a fire in me
That I cannot put out
That I cannot ignore
That I cannot hide

I lit a fire in me
That demands I act
That demands I do more
That demands I be more

I lit a fire in me
Yet I fear
Yet I fear
Yet I fear

It may consume me yet

Summer trees reach out
Seeking out more and more sun
Taken from the ground

I’ll take my truth and let it fly
Release it from the lonely dark
And watch, intent, as it soars high
And I let myself make my mark

Let me etch you
Into the shadowed places
Into the hidden corners
Of my mind

Let me paint you
Upon the brightest walls
Upon the highest towers
Of my soul

Let me write you
In all the secret nooks
In all the lonely seats
In all the broken parts
Of me

In shreds of my art

Do the world’s shadows fester

Telling me to stop

Once I opened my ears
To the songs upon the breeze
To the whispers hidden there
To the secrets I once missed

And there upon the breeze
Was truth everlasting
A power greater than can be seen
Or imagined

There was a song
Sung by the trees
And the birds
And the grasses
And the soft clay and hard rock

Now when I open my ears
I hear it evermore