Conversation—like a Sparrow’s crumb—
Upon the windowsill of Night—
We peck at Silence—timidly—
And call the morsel Light—
The Table sets its modest Feast—
A Plate of simple Bread—
Yet Hunger asks a braver Grace
Than Butter’s golden spread—
Affection—moves with mittened hand—
And dares not name its aim—
It warms the air between two breaths
And blushes into Flame—
I never sleep—I ask the Why—
The Clock denies reply—
Only You keep the vigil here—
A Question passing by—
If Dawn should lift her timid veil
And find us still awake—
She’d think us stars that missed their turn
Yet could not Choose it's Light—
Inside a crystal globe of red and white,
Our memory dances soft and bright—
A tiny world sealed in its glow,
Where second chances fall like snow.
You tapped the glass with mittened hand,
As if to wake from a dream in Santa's land;
I held my breath, excited to see
Time bend itself for you and me.
Each flake became a whispered memory,
A promise drifting back to you and me.
A moment paused, a truth retold,
A future brave enough to hold.
Now on my shelf the globe still gleams,
A doorway to unforgotten dreams;
I shake it once, and through the shine,
Your beauty warms this heart of mine.
MYSTIC
gravitating together,
children - puffy fat in snowsuits - grasp
one another's mittened hands,
in-line unison,
their fall backwards into a soft ridge of snow
kid-laughter dances on the bending wind of cold
saturated tones of silliness
freefall play
repeated in fresh drifts with puckish twists
newfound layers of warmth
with ruddy, winter-worn complexions
an untroubled time
in the bruised abundance of snow
etched by imprints
winter's candy floss to children
life-loving voices that torch the chilling air
with joy
before heartbreak is definable
before bindings shape their toil
Poem composed February 20, 2022
red noses dripping
pink cheeks stinging from cold air
mittened hands clapping
written November 14, 2021
for "Fall or Winter Holiday Haiku" Poetry Contest
sponsored by Tania Kitchen
END OF DREAM.
Perhaps I have lost the end of dream
For indulging in too much wakefulness
Or I have replicated the regale reality
In charades of some perpetual imagined.
Will I ever stay in sleep of easeful death
Or wake up to the call of an anguished strife
Where life makes some sense in living
Despite the instructions of digressed nights.
To give a purpose to veiled intensity
Or a shift away from the drunken stupor
In discovering knowledge of the lonely sea
Into endless marches of the spacious fervour.
Strapping the worlds beyond mittened sway
Stealing saltants from builders of milky way.
It snowed the day my mother taught me to engrave
She held a waxy green leaf between her mittened fingers
And mapped each yellow vein with her eager eyes
All filled up to the lashes with yellow
Scraping away the green, catching it under her fingernails
She found my name like some ancient code in its shallow skin
White winter sun tentatively fingered the letters
And the wind took them elsewhere
Towards the great grey clouds above
Meanwhile our feet lay planted to the ankles
In something cold and heavy.
Bitter, bitter, bitter
not as in a taste on tongue
or unrequited loves' remain,
only of wind thats wrung
all warmth from the air.
Bitter, bitter, bitter
all the way through to bone,
clenching chattering teeth,
and breath blown
on mittened hands.
Shine of sun to deceive
beckons one out of doors
brain has an idea of sun
that roars
away outside
caught in bitter's bite.
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