Some nights,
the color of music
is barely a shimmer~
a pale wash of sound
brushing the air
like moonlight learning
how to breathe.
It moves the way
a memory moves,
slow at the edges,
soft in the center,
a hue you feel
before you see.
Sometimes it glows
like a beacon under water,
a muted gold
rising through the dark
to remind you
that even silence
has a pulse.
And sometimes
it is only a shadow
of a color~
the faintest blue
that gathers
when a voice trembles
with something
it cannot name.
Music is never just heard.
It is carried,
like light in the hands,
like a secret
that keeps changing shades
each time the heart
listens.
While relaxing in a city park,
A conversation could be heard
Between a cat and a squirrel.
It was on a sonny summer day,
Around mid-afternoon,
Late in the month of May.
A cat was sitting under a fruitless
Mulberry tree, looking left, lost, and lonely.
And a squirrel was sitting relaxed in the tree,
Looking fearless, free, and friendly.
The squirrel said to the cat,
"Good afternoon my friend.
How are you on this sonny day?"
The cat wasn't so friendly when
He replied, "Can't you see that I'm
Abandoned, lost, and all alone"?
The squirrel said, "my sight isn't
That great, but I will say this."
"Say what?", said the cat.
Then said the squirrel in the
Friendliest of tone,
"There is a solution to the most
Challenging problems. There is a
Resolution to the gravest prognosis.
Time and consequence Will bring
Resolve and solve our faintest cries".
The cat said thank you to the squirrel,
And they parted company.
They rise like heat-mirages
at the edge of memory,
shimmering figures who never learned
the art of being seen.
They move through our days
soft as dust lifting from old floorboards,
leaving only the faintest signatures~
a tilt of the head,
a stubborn kindness,
a way of listening
that feels older than we are.
Invisible ancestors
thread their breath through ours,
teaching us how to stand
in storms we never witnessed.
They murmur in the marrow,
a language without vowels,
a pulse older than sepia photographs.
Sometimes they arrive
as a sudden stillness in the room,
as if someone stepped in
and chose not to speak.
Sometimes as a dream
where a stranger’s face
feels impossibly familiar.
We carry them
like lanterns under the ribs~
their light small, steady,
refusing to go out.
We live our lives,
their shadows entwined in ours.
And though they left
no names to call them by,
they remain the quiet architects
of our courage,
the unseen chorus
that steadies our trembling hearts.
This Moment
Silence echoes a hum: listening for a whisper in static.
That rests away beyond the mountain path, at waterfalls,
Edge. While moving back and forth, in a loss for a listener.
Muteness then becomes obscure.
On the shore that was silent;
As silence in sounds now echoed, but only felt.
Softly in the atmosphere.
Became more curious while anticipating even the faintest
White noise. In search of a hidden cove.
Dotting between places unusually.
In that moment, imagine, imagine!
If you could?
Simulated realms appear between sounds and air.
Inner motion, it's like kissing someone else, or what remains.
Memories of those soundscapes while embracing a new soundscape.
To this moment, it's quiet.
Inside a frozen moment you wait
the door ajar
as if to capture the faintest echo
of footfall
the mirror scrutinizing that empty space
on the couch
my reflection endlessly snared
in mute counterpoint.
I stand before the marble block,
its cold breath waiting.
Others see stone~
I see the boy already turning his head toward light.
My hands ache with the old obsession:
to free the form God hid inside,
to follow the faintest curve of muscle
as if it were scripture.
Day after day I listen
for the whisper beneath the hammer’s strike~
the pulse of a shoulder,
the tension of a tendon preparing to rise.
The body is a language,
and I must carve every syllable true.
Patience becomes my companion.
I chip, I smooth, I kneel,
studying the marble as though it might breathe
if I only learn its secret.
I chase the form as pilgrims search for the sacred~
aware it forever retreats into light
yet unable to stop searching.
When, at last, the dust settles,
when David’s gaze finally lifts
toward the giant only he can see,
I feel the quiet truth:
I did not create him.
I merely uncovered
what had been waiting
for someone stubborn enough
to believe it was there.
Cockatiels coo in the early quiet,
their crest feathers catching the faintest color,
morning moving toward me with a memory-soft touch.
Cherry blossoms loosen their light petals,
each one falling like a long-kept moment,
soft signs slipping across the path of who I was.
Spring steps gently back onto the land,
stirring stillness I’d almost grown used to,
a season slowly offering its sweet beginning again.<
She came to the senior once-a-month lunch.
From a lovely bench at the table head,
she nodded to all with a faintest smile
not having attended the past few times.
For many years, the special bench for two
was this dear couple's honored place to sit.
He passed away three months ago, now it
lies chilled from lack of warmth and her sad heart.
I try to hold
The glass jar of life
But it shatters
At the slightest brush
Of my fingertips
One minute we say
"Hello"
And the next
"Goodbye."
How is our measly flesh
Made to handle grief?
How are our sinews and bones
So fragile
As to be crushed
By the faintest impact
Yet expected to carry
The weight of loss?
Love cowers
In the presence of death
For I can't bear to embrace something
That can disintegrate
As quickly as I can say
"I love you."
I try to gather
The glass shards of life
But they scatter
At the gentlest breath
One minute we say
"Goodbye"
And I can only hope
The next
We say
"Hello."
Treading lightly on one’s dreams,
Is not the faintest way to be.
Cardinal images it seems:
Treading lightly on one’s dreams,
Pictures of Splendor it deems,
Loves’s veil has not fallen yet.
Treading lightly on one’s dreams,
Is not the faintest way to be.
The words are unspoken, never penned on a page.
They linger, ghostly shadows in the chambers of
my mind, elusive dreams dancing just beyond the
fingertips. Time unfurls like a silken ribbon,
stretching endlessly as I reach for them, only
to grasp at the air. They float through the
corridors of my thoughts, shimmering whispers
that fade with each passing moment.
In the silence, I chase echoes, like threads,
a tapestry of forgotten tales. Each thread is
a memory, tangled yet vibrant, a glimpse of
meaning forever just out of reach. The clock
ticks on, its hands relentless, as the final
curtain slowly descends upon my memories,
leaving behind only the faintest whispers.
What remains are the voices never heard, lost
in the depths of time, and those ethereal
words that escape my grasp—longing, dimly
remembered lost words, echoing into the void,
an eternal symphony of stories left untold.
When we two parted, the dawn was gray,
No bird sang softly to ease the day—
Only the hush where tears might fall,
And love, too frail, forgot it all.
Your eyes were oceans gone to sleep,
Their tides withdrew, their silence deep;
I watched them fade, I could not stay—
The heart breaks quietly that way.
The rose I held has turned to dust,
Its petals whisper what I must:
That even stars, when love is through,
Burn out remembering the hue.
Now every dusk recalls your face,
Each twilight bears your faintest trace—
I reach, but find the empty air,
And know your soul is nowhere there.
When we two parted, time stood still,
The moon looked down, the world was ill—
And though my lips no more implore,
I shall be lonely evermore.
Where silence waits, the others see,
A pale horizon, endlessly—
The wind has lips that do not speak,
Yet brush the tears along my cheek.
Here thought is buried under snow,
Where great minds go, yet never know
Why beauty fades, or dreams depart,
Or love forgets the faintest spark.
A whisper stirs the fallen air,
The stars look down, but are not there.
Each soul that burned too bright, too high,
Now flickers soft beneath the sky—
And silence keeps my lullaby.
A single word can soften the hardest stone,
It bridges gaps where silence might divide,
A candle lit, its gentle warmth is shown,
To guide the weary through the stormy tide.
It asks for little, yet it gives so much,
A thread of gold through broken fabric sewn,
The faintest whisper, or the slightest touch,
Can heal a heart that thought it stood alone.
For kindness blooms where bitterness has died,
A mystic power mortals can’t confine;
The world remade when mercy turns the tide,
And love in quiet gestures learns to shine.
Up above a lone bird soars high,
a speck of movement in an azure sky
tainted, with the faintest streaks of white.
It spreads its wing majestically,
sunlight reflecting off its feathers,
glancing off its back.
The wind is its sole friend
as it glides over land and sea,
mountains and trenches,
cities and forests.
It goes wherever it wishes,
surveying its dominion below.
The scenes it will see, only it will know.
It flies far beyond the horizon,
pivoting and diving like an arrow
enjoying the cool air rush past its body.
Effortlessly, it glides
through sun, rain and snow,
nonchalant about what follows.
As it journeys without end across the plains,
it knows it is minute in comparison
and that its journey has just begun.
And so as we leave it to disappear from view
on its endless adventure,
we are reminded that we are not so different from it,
and it's about time we spread our wings.
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