What Cannot be Kept
“O dearest wanderer,
what longing guides your path?”
“With the gentle rush of wandering wind,
I pay my regards to the changing sky.”
“Is your chase for the horizon,
or for a home where the heart is true?”
“What am I more than water in air,
what more can I offer than water?”
“In the cradle of your blue,
what stories do you whisper to the sun?”
“My whispers bring tears to some,
while others dance to the rain.”
“Clad in white of lowly need,
is it your sway with shadow or shine?”
“It is not I who sway
my beauty is not mine;
beautiful are your eyes that behold.”
“Then let me gaze and gaze,
to hold you in my eyes this moment
before the wind takes you away.”
“Capture me with your eyes,
dance with me in distant rain.
Your warmth wraps me,
and I shed myself to you.”
“I have no sky to gift you,
but a heart I do own
small as it may be,
yet it could keep all your shades,
all the shapes you’ve ever worn.
The rain will wash you away.
I choose not to ask you to stay,
but to return each dusk,
when the sky is kind
and my heart reaches for you.”
“Recall me with the falling drops.
Let the wind play with your fingers.
Open your arms wide enough,
and I will catch myself
in the grip of yours.
Fill me in your pockets, zip them shut
time and tide wait for none,
but spend and drift with me.”
The birds don’t blink
In their unmoving stare
counting what crawls,
and what ends there
I lie in stillness,
with the trigger’s hold
a breath away lies my claim
a life reduced without a name.
For now,
I leave them to remain
while they live in fleeting reign
false is that kingdom
where they sing their rhyme
all its pillars stand
on borrowed time
Birds of autumn paint the trees
those robbed of all their hues
only if you could see them
carriers of the evening’s muse
they belong to the open skies
sweetest birds, from my eyes
With no thought I pull the trigger
The bang clouds the bird’s cries
And as the bird died and fell
That made two of us, I surmise.
The sky bore its autumn blue
so boundless, so vast,
the one our wings had known
since before we knew names
for joy or sorrow, to last.
a misery it was,
to watch her fall
she hit the ground
to fate’s own call
The last of her breath, held
held in my wait of the dawn
for the cold to soon carry me,
where she has already gone.
***
But you can't kill
all birds of the sky
That's why some part
of me lives, to not die
not all is wrong
for in the blunt of actions
hopes live too
the knots we all,
don't undo.
yet some tighten
and hold true
No new to me the seasons
Then why so strange,
The change?
Maybe the last spring
Was new
And so
New was the change
***
When you speak of wilting,
it’s to let the skin rot
and let the armor shine
what dies with flesh
may return in thoughts
and still haunt me
The heart says
What the mind foresees,
Familiar sounds
Still whisper
in unfamiliar keys.
So, I draw closer,
hearing in the rift of tunes
not silence,
but a song unfinished,
waiting for its name.
The birds don't call out,
the hush gets too loud,
is it because they're sleeping,
and the night has come?
Maybe wait for another dawn
and open the windows wide
for who knows
the birds might rest
softly by your pillow’s side.
who would hold my wait,
carry the heaviness
of my heart that longs,
with gentle hands
and sing me to sleep?
Patience isn’t a gift that’s gifted
Nor to be thrown off for greed
The birds sing the sweetest melodies
With whom they rejoice and weep
