when did I start writing
more about death
than about love?
notice the waves
leaving the shore
instead of breaking at my feet?
when did I give power to fear
instead of hope?
feel my breath escaping
instead of filling me?
when did I start counting the silences
between my heart beats?
look toward the shadow
rather than toward the sun?
will I ever let
Spring come again?
Today
I watched a woman
Dressed in jeans
A lavender blouse
And black flats
Walk straight into the ocean waves.
She did not hesitate nor flinch
Until she stopped when the waves
Peaked at her shoulders.
She dipped her head under a wave
Then flipped her wet hair back.
She stood and stared at the undulating horizon.
After two or three minutes
She turned around and walked back to shore
Never hesitating nor flinching.
As she walked past me sitting alone in the sand
Her wet hair dripped down her back.
She had lost her shoes.
It is easy to love a tree in Spring
Budded and budding
Showing you colors you are expecting
Or in Summer
All shade and soft smells
Or in Autumn
When they age with dignity
Trembling
With leaves dancing
Like couples who learned to waltz
50 years ago.
But in Winter?
Can you love a tree in Winter?
Overly thin
And awkwardly standing
Showing their skeleton
Like a hospital patient
With their gown unintentionally open.
The weather is cold.
The breath I have remaining
Fogs out of my mouth.
Will you love me
In this unforgiving Winter?
You woke me from a dream about you
To tell me you had been dreaming about me
You would think this would make us soulmates
Or something
Already connected through the ether
Of the subconscious
And maybe we are
But I had been dreaming
Of you trapped in a black room
And you had been dreaming
Of my body separated
Into jagged pieces
I want to write a poem
to the beat
of the
ocean
the BOOM
swishhhhh
whisper
of the waves dying on sand
and somehow
tie it to birth
and death
and maybe God’s breath
and,
man,
waves are so consistent
insistent
that the world
keeps moving
no matter how many times
I tell it to STOP
and here’s another wave
BOOM
swishhhhh
whisper
my voice reading this is too loud
endowed with my human pride
but the tide will keep pulling me down
pulling the sand from around my feet
back into the ocean
so any notion I have
of my superior humanness
is lost in a whitewater wash
of those whispers
BOOM
swishhhhh
whisper
and, yes,
maybe this is about birth
and death
and even God’s breath
and life moving beyond
my yells of help
and how the cycle continues
and I’m less than that whisper
I know I need to stop writing this
speaking this
needing this to give me
a sense of who I am
or how I fit
it’s time for me to quit
this self-pitying
self-aggrandizing
philosophizing on what the
ocean
means to me and everybody else
and just
jump
into
the waves
BOOM
swishhhhh
whisper
I graduated summa cum laude
With a major in Sorry
And a minor in Whatever You Say
You’ve asked me to go back to night school
Because,
Apparently,
I didn’t learn the material
Well enough
A storm of yesterday
Eyes closed because it is dark
Feeling safest in the corners
Outside
Feathers rip the sky
Leftover wishes
That turned into pain
The screaming is internal
Sunlight?
Where’s the sunlight?
When will dawn come
And the day forgive?
Eyes still closed
The feathers pound on the windows
Yesterday’s rain
Probably tomorrow’s rain
The corners aren’t safe anymore
Open eyes
Open windows
Let storm in
Feathers on skin
The screaming is internal
