swan drying its feathers

wings

Humans
are meant
to have wings

have you noticed

when your arms fold in
to cover your chest

somehow
your body is still
balanced

it's the weight
of your wings
solid with feathers
soft white, rippled with
shadows

your shoulders know
the effortless lift
to the sky

and have you noticed
that the smoke
is thicker

since the wind has risen

tell me
are you finished with
the fire

if your heart
can let go

your wings are waiting

Peekamoose valley in snow

a stone only breaks once

a stone
only breaks once

but a heart
is born

to crack
like ice in springtime
under the
slow unflinching sun

heaving its crystal skin
into islands
and continents

splitting apart
in dark veins
of glass

melting, melting
until
the night's steel fingers
glide over the torn edges

smoothing the scars away
solid again
unbroken

until morning

swans taking a bath

valentine

I found
for you
a perfect circle
of sea

where the sun
had splashed in and out
all afternoon

like a child
diving down
to wiggle its bare toes
on the
sandy bottom

the February ice
had dissolved
into bubbles

the wind had also melted away

and I tried
to save
a piece
of the turquoise day

for you
marbled with gold
like a cat's eye

dripping wet
in both hands

This valentine is for my beloved readers, all of you, known and unknown--!

bluebell wood

violet of the horizon

I want to leave this earth
and move
to violet

such a shade,
shimmering
on the flanks of mountains

violet, why
do you appear
only when the sky
is closing for the night

and when I cross
the distance
between us
you vanish

into red sunset streaks
on the trees
and blue canyon shadows

but never that
violet
that I love

if I hitch a ride
on the full moon
and roll to your distant edge

if I
strip myself
clean as snow

will you embrace me
with your color
violet
of the horizon

Japanese willow tree dancers

Self-explanatory?
This performance was at the Cherry Blossom Festival (Sakura Matsuri) at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden last Spring
(click on photo for more detail)

goldeneye

is it this cloud
inside my chest

that makes me think of you

or is it
that tiny black duck
there
with the small white patch
around its eye

bobbing alone
in an empty ocean

see, I am certain
that if that infinitesimal dark spot
in its center
disappeared

the sea
would rise up
like a torn blue blanket

and peel itself
off the earth
into the sky

that is,

from what I know
about love

waterlily

dear heart

dear heart,
were you waiting

for a perfect angle
of sunrise
to melt the snow

was there a bluebird
expected

perhaps a lava flow

or, to be more gentle
a thinning
of the earth's skin
just so

were you hoping for warmth
are you willing
to settle

let's talk