A Million Atoms Away

Some days
joy is simple.

Children are laughing.
Meals are beautiful.
We say just the right things.

I imagine that today
life is a complex tangle
of joy, beauty, and kindness.

I bow to my twin
and the light that lives there.

Today I bow and know that scary links
of light and subtle energy
is the simple joy
we can't help
but exchange

from a million atoms
away.

Sleeping Late

It isn't enough to pull the covers up near my chin
on a night where we leave the lights off
and turn down the heat.

Flannel so soft and almost feathers
on cool skin tucks me in
like some ghost of a father
or mother who kisses us on our forehead,

"Nighty, night. Sleep tight. Don't let the bed bugs bite."

I want to sleep late,
with out care
or wondering what time it is.

I want to sleep late
until my bones don't ache
and my eyes are surprised at the day.

I want to sleep late,
drink coffee in bed with my book,
shower after stretching, slip into socks,
not shoes, and then nap,

all afternoon.

Holding a Leaf in November

All these years of living,
secretly admiring
the passing of light,
and I am still breathless
to find a fallen leaf

full of copper or gold
and hold it to the brightness
of November sky
just to marvel

at the fall.

Today, Here I Am, Letting Go

Here I am
lingering like a vagabond
in the spaces between real time
and no time.

I decompress between afternoon intensity
of teaching the blind to see the sky
and the deaf to hear God's footsteps

and evening's chilly decline into the hours
that repossess the soul at sunset.

Between sleeping and waking
the breath lances the quiet
and smells like death and damp mildew.

Here I am
lingering with hope
that I might glimpse real love
in the face of a stranger.

I breathe, exhale,
and pray for the grace
to let go of beauty
at the end of every day.

Into Dreaming

The single glass of wine
has warmed my blood
and let me slip into the night
like something dark and shimmering
at the smooth edges of almost frozen water.

I am still here.

The waves of quiet
lap softly before sleep.

In the distance the trucks downshift on the Marlboro hill
and the train heads south toward New York City.
All that noise
is nothing now.

I am still here and can hear the clock
ticking in my head while I drift off
into dreaming.

I will dream of many geese drifting toward the Connecticut River
where we all float with leaves making their way
toward the ocean
and some other way
of knowing God.

As The Robin Decides Not to Fly

The bellow of November's uproar
has not yet settled on the landscape.

Instead we relax in the foggy golden light
without friction except the swish of leaves
under our feet.

The invitation to sing
and dance in this shuffle of crispness
chirps on as thrifty as a robin gathering
close to her friends who have decided not to depart
for this winter.

She will stay in the comfort of the snows
under the branches of cedar
and among the holly.

She will stay north
to see the light fade
like her red breast bleached
by the white and frozen skies
making it nearly impossible
to fly.