Rainbow Cartwheels Across Town in November

The forecast will not diminish me today
when a rainbow in November in rural Vermont
unexpectedly brightened my path
like a cloud burst
without an umbrella.

In my most innocent mind
I expected a rainbow
and maybe a unicorn,
as unlikely or ghastly
as that might have been.

The imagination
can be a predator
with few assurances
or persuasion
of permanence.

A cursory glance
at less than a cartwheel
of excitement
wounds me today

when a rainbow might usually break probation
and allow joy to break out on the streets
like a riot of color and so much
cartwheeling light.

On Veterans Day

The ways we pluck the notes
of patriotic songs
from the lips of the fallen

hits me like all the cold captured
in November granite, rough and frozen
by time and lack of light.

These few who gather,melt with each tear,
together we laud those who have given everything,
ashamed of ourselves
for not doing as much
as we could.

We shuffle. We can't make eye contact.
We are silent because there are no words
to make up for all these losses.


Let me be precise.

We will never repay
the debt owed here.

There is no compensation
for all this blood.

The Traitor

In the watchtower of my mind
I watch myself escape over the barbed wire
of the breath and tunnel under the hedgerow
of disappointment.

My handiwork is noteworthy.
Hands full of abrasions from the digging
and the mind shaved close to the bone
to look like the prisoner I am.

If I could charter a seaward ship
bound for nowhere
I would.

I am a traitor
of my own practice.
I am a silent thief
waiting to be released
on my best behavior.

With the Moon Waxing Full

There is a locket of hope
that I hang over my heart
with a silver chain, shiny
and almost strong enough.

Each day we are all placing emotional postage
on the letters written to recruit the heart
to let love flow from the simple gesture
of gratitude.

I am not the Lone Ranger
riding with my trusty companion
into the sunset.

I am alone on this vast prairie with my laughter
and all the jovial torches that burn brightly
to light the way under the stars

and with the moon waxing full,
we might just remember
how solitude is no stranger
to the dark reminder
we were all left behind.

Welcome Sweet Sleep

Before I drift
into the perplexing night
for refuge and mercy,

let me dedicate these thoughts
to the delivery of the soul
from all that we grapple to understand
with the mind.

Let the sleep that will soon overtake me
be filled with the treasure of the true self;
those tiny gems of living fully.

The heart is, by all accounts,
the beloved neighbor
who loves us
for exactly who we are
and who needs no license
to take away the boundaries
where love has been caught

in the wires of fear
and someone else's distant picture
of peace that doesn't include
a lullabye.