Half the Moon

The sky swims
thick with light
and stars that hold
wishes like holding
the breath of a galaxy

until the laughter
of a woman opens her mouth
and the sound of water
springs into warm
and generous rains.

Half of a moon
is almost enough
when the earth stirs
beneath her brilliance,

a lover
waiting for his signal
to climb the trellis
falls through the window
into the arms of warm breezes
and sweetness of orange lily petals.

It won't be long until the moon is singing
and calls quiet as a nightingale
as the sun sets and darkness reflects
on the cool surface of enough sleep
to remember how to dream out loud.

Shadows of Flight

Robins used to be the sign I looked for,
the day when out of nowhere
spring would launch herself desperately
toward the sun and the freezing puddles
that tear the roads into heaving messes.

But today, the ravens return
as if beaconed by the ashes
of Lent.
These dark birds;
these shadows of flight,
hurl beaks and claws
as if they recognize my face
all these years later.

I have walked out of the desert again
and yet, these winged creatures,
not from heaven as they rest in the trees
over my head, call out to me, jabbing my sense
of my self.

I see the path
and it is not my job
to watch them watching me,
Stretching out
wing tip to wing tip
and counting all the shiny
stems of gliding from on high
to peck at all nature
of things.

God's Garden

In the morning
when my feet are naked,
cold and unattractive--

when my feet are nowhere near the softness
of a green and growing lawn
wet with dew,

let me admire
basil and dill seeds
that were given
as a gift of hope.

Let me dream about purple cabbage
and leeks, forget-me-nots
and marigolds,
that send delicate tongues
from the earth
to suckle the sun

like love at the breast
and love that is only understood
by touching the heart
that is cultivated
in God's garden.

Ash Wednesday in Vermont

It happens this way
in Vermont,

when snow feathers
light as ashes from God's fire

drifting over us all,
reminding us of love

that dances from heaven,
soundless joy

given as a gift
on the dirtiest gray days

in March.
Beauty mixed with air

and water frozen with dust
into the absolutely perfect faces

of children smiling
at tiny miracles landing

as angel kisses
on risen rosy cheeks.

Absolute Zero

I nearly forgot them,
these letters strung together
into meaning,
meaning into phrases,
phrases into something bigger
than the way sound emerges
from the mouth
and sings
like we never forgot
the word defined
for this kind of cold
and snow that hardens
into impossible ice.

I nearly forgot
that I matter
in that cold
destination
and that my heart
was not shattered
at some unrealistic touch.

I nearly forgot
that love often displays
a glowing light of neon
in the darkest March
that pulses
and gradually erases
winter and that loneliness
is not frozen into everything
like generational glaciers
that will never thaw
even over steaming black coffee
and daring cream with raw
sugar.

Help me forget
the grip of icy breath
that held me so still
for so long
and threatened to crack,
surrender soundlessly,
and once witnessed
absolute zero
and all that stark
and jagged truth.

Measuring the Day

These are small victories
for which measurement
seems impossible

or at the very least
impractical.

Joy doesn't arrive
to be cut up and evaluated.

It is with us
to be shivered with
as it passes
like a breeze
on the surface of
the mind's liquid longing
for permanent grasps
on a child's smile.

The Gathering

In places of prayer
and ecstatic music
my heart sends tethers
out into the heavens
with no hope of landing

but instead
lets these ribbons
of secret wishes
escape and fly free
to wherever they might
find a hand to hold.

The child of wonder
looks up at a rainbow of color
and gasps, smiles, laughs

jumping up to grasp
just one simple string
of joy to hold onto

if only for a lost
and lingering moment
gathered in the palm
of a small and impermanent
hand.