Cane Creek

Take me to the creek side where persimmons

grow, where the juice of plums and muscadines

streak children’s  dirty faces like war paint.

We danced the rain dance, called on freezing snow

and bade thunder and lightning to go, while

huddled in our woodland huts, hidden from

an angry God beating his wayward wife,

or moving furniture;  we did not know.

Those long ago summers were forever

with an end. Did we hear the keening trees

cry in sorrow over a child’s lost dreams?

As children do, they grow and drift away

forgetting huts and magical games they

built in utter faith along the winding creek.

But, I remember and I am starved

for the peace that only the wild gods know,

charging barefoot and naked through untamed

undergrowth, saving little girls lost in the wilderness.

The Storm Arrives

The storm arrives with gusty winds,
as tears of heaven touch the ground;
A rumbling thunder never ends.
The storm arrives with gusty winds,
lightening flashes, trees do bend;
A trembling clash of nature’s sounds.
The storm arrives with gusty winds,
as tears of heaven touch the ground.

Summer Ghazal

Warbling birds, cicada’s song, green fields and blooms, lonely sighs,
summer’s passing. In this heat I wilt in lonesome sighs.

Another season fades, love sick loon, dancing in the sun,
carefree and wild. Barefoot, I run to catch the last ray’s sighs.

Oh Summer, you pass so quickly! I blinked my eyes, you flew
into bleeding skies, gone as quickly as love’s tender sighs.

Time to sleep now; rest, sweet Summer time, ‘til another day,
After Autumn’s finery, Winter’s chill and Spring winds sigh.

‘Til next time when your hot breath touches my cheek tenderly,
You are my own sweet dream, recalled with a longing sigh.

The Red Leaf

I am
a red leaf
dancing in the wind,

drifting,
falling,
to a soggy ground.

I am the chill,
the long dark nights
of winter setting in.

A sharp-eyed crow
sits in treetops,
caw, caw, cawing
at the red leaf falling,

shivering as my chilled air
engulfs him.

Antiseptic White

There was nothing to do

but wait,

inside antiseptic

white walls

listening.

Nurses’ sterile voices,

drawing blood

or trying.

Mother’s groans of pain

with each empty stick.

Her blood ran dry

last week;

She has no more to give.

I wait

in a corner,

glazed gazing

through a window.

Bird in a blue sky

flies free.

***************************************

lament

at dawn
mists hang above the river
suspended
between dark and light
the water’s lament

Long Gloaming

Trees afire,

an egret shadowed

in long gloaming

looking for fish. 

I could starve for love

when you’re not here.

                     Did I say you?

I meant the egret,

gone,

                     it’s after-image burned

                     in purple ripples,

flown away

in despair.