Washtub Press

For Dad

I am listening to Floyd, thinking of my father

as a young man, his labored smile in some photos,

a look of knowing. It is the music that spoke for him

what he could not say about a broken-seeming world.

The sky is dark, the hills only shadow,

except for a peace sign in red and green lights

high above the freeway. The feeling begins at my core

something like yearning, a subdued passion, then a knowing

that the colors complement each other; that from fire

comes new life; from anger, growth; from full stop,

movement. I give an internal nod to the peace artist,

whose home is obscured behind the trees, or behind the light.

At the root, we know each other’s hearts.

Copyright 2012 Washtub Press

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The death of two never equals the birth of one,

even if one swift stone is the cutting end of an infamous arrow.

One swift stone is three drops of blood on clean white snow,

a calling to unite and an urging to remain alone,

the passing of winter, the promise of green, a porcelain shell shattered

and the whisper of a promise released.

One swift stone pierces a coral breast, round and feather-down.

One heart is taken, the second merely given out in longing

to be free of its beating.

Copyright 2012 Washtub Press

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Perhaps I am too judgmental.

It’s just, they come so quickly. All of a sudden,

in the spring, I notice them all around,

swaying like silver grass. I am overtaken

by the ones that flower in primary colors

as if they were the first ever to grow.

I am pulled to them, the magnetic mates

to my kindness. But up close, from their roots—

though seeming deep—they are beginning

to brown as soon as they appear. Warmth

from the humid earth brings out their true colors.

I wish I could preserve their yellows and blues,

keep out the air that ages us—then we could

admire the beauty in each other’s faces

through glass. Maybe then I could just say

you are right and I am wrong—take of me.

Except, the truth would start burning—a flame

of my self that requires no oxygen, fading

their color until they become ash—

their emptiness of form, all that I have left of our

brief and fated pairings.

Copyright 2012 Washtub Press

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