Curvature

the delicate sound of your smile
slow-forming, is born anew each time

a laugh peeks through your lashes and
dazzles my eyes. My heart rises on

the degree of curve
which takes hostage a dimple

in the lean angles of your face
I am captured entirely

slave to your mirth
no need for words, silence builds

restless and charged, it
changes the quality of  touch

air crackles between us, extravagant,
quickening, lightning fast

like the curve of light
when a rainbow is made

or the curve of your arms
when I’m in them

April:2008

Through the Lens

a radiant smile
wipes exhaustion. 

In her hospital bed,
she opens welcome wings…

Not bothering with the scarf,
she no longer bemoans the falling
blonde wisps, as her daughter
holds out the new arrival.

A generation apart,
they stare at each other
with the same blue eyes.

She tries to impress her touch
on the little carbon-copy
-her piece of immortality.

She quells the grief 
that overwhelms when
her lips touch petal-skin,

and holds the baby up to pose
for the picture she knows will be
all her grandchild will ever have of her.

January: 2008

Nightfire

In flaming voice,
the milky opal
sails through silvermoss
covering her nakedness.

My eyes, now
accustomed to the dark
see the marble planes
of your face

which glow in my cupped
hands before I drink of
night's elixir.

Tangled mouths start
in heady rush and end
somewhere in sin.

A frightening ache echoes
black-winged hunger
and sets the night
on fire.

February : 2008

Song of the Trees

Drinking gifts of the soil
from dripping rivulets,
roots dig in thirsty abandon.

Entwined like lovers,
windchimes twirl,
silver-green in blurry dance,
scripting songs of centuries
rising up their veins.

In silence, mantled custodians shelter
shrinking earth; their spirits shudder
from echoes of steady axe-drums,

yet from their greening arms
the world dances, leaf-shadows rustle;
whispering secrets of treesong.

 April:2008

Sunken Cathedral

They told stories of a hidden place
and cautioned us against
the ruins of broken stones.

Sunken deep beneath the forest,
submerged beyond discovery
was a labyrinth of secret delights-
a world within a world.

We sensed a sweet danger,
enchanted sounds of
rapid, fluttering wings,
where buried far below in
dark, clumped soil were
fragments of stained glass
they brought back: our “treasure.”

While they were in town,
we escaped; breathless,
tripping over roots of great trees,
cooling in the shade.
We looked for summer adventure
in forbidden land.

Softly padding feet on forest floor
where light strained to pierce through
massive oaks gnarled and twisted with time;
in a heliotrope sunset, fragrant with lemons,
we played make-believe
in the sunken cathedral and wrote
countless stories in our minds.

Then, in rotting leaves we spied
the older ones kiss.
We smothered giggles,
squirmed backward on our bellies
and crept away.

When they came home, hand in hand,
swinging a basket of berries,
we pretended not to notice the
leaves sticking to their clothes.

Now they’re gone…

but as we visit once again,
we hear their whispers
coaxing birdsong
in sentient groves.

April:2008