Rusty-Haired Vagabond

You had red hair like the dusty iron soil beneath the

foreboding boulders of this valley. The riverbed,

parched by the kiss of drought, was your highway

into and beyond this forsaken residence of life.

Mesas and spires of unyielding stone pepper the

landscape like the freckles painted upon your face

by the fiery fingertips of the sun.

But this was not your home – you've drifted

for miles from the grassy yellow plains that

rung in your words with the bells of fondness

and remorse most bitter.

I heard you murmur about your little soldier

as you dreamt by the hearth of my dwelling,

and you would always awaken in tears,

crying out in a language I still cannot understand.

It was nothing, though, you told me. To you,

it was just life. But I would never believe you,

for I was too enthralled with the mysteries of a

peregrine wayfarer. Your past loomed over you

like the gloomy shadows cast by the cliffs scattered

helter-skelter by the hands of innumerable eons.

And yet I was no aid to you – just an eccentric,

canyon-dwelling stranger.

But, dearest rusty-haired vagabond, when you

set forth in the murky hours before dawn,

I resolved to follow, in faith and in blindness,

and thus I stand before you, prepared to carry you

onward after the salty, arid winds have left you

thirsting for water and freedom from desolation.

Come, shall we seek your young and timid little

soldier? Let us find her, rosy-faced and weary

before ill fortune can rend her pale and lost.

Stars for which to Aim

The woods are unfriendly in the spring–

they strangle and obfuscate with their vines

and branches. Strangers lose their way

when last autumn's fallen leaves revive

and tumble onto the trail

to make it disappear.

I've lost myself here before, and

you were lost too, but we did not

call each others' names – no. No

lost children were scampering about

these woods. We were only wanderers–

specks of flesh and cotton amid a

ubiquitous verdant haze.

We stumbled serendipitously into a clearing.

The vines wore you beautifully, but

the leaves clung only halfheartedly to me.

I remember the way your voice chirped

and soared as you romanticized the sky

and whispered about your closest secrets.

The color of your world bewildered me,

as I spoke only of the ground and the things

that lay beneath our feet. But we were not

so different, not so distant, for the sky
would be no sky without an Earth from which
to see it, and the Earth would be no Earth without
stars for which to aim.

You stayed with me, through passing

hours and taught me how to watch the clouds

rolling by. You, a stranger, raised your hand

with mine in its grasp and traced the outlines

of tree trunks and jagged rocks around us.

We saw night lurking on the horizon,

and though I worried, you minded not.

The way out, you assured me,

had to be around this tree or through

these bushes, but this forest kept well

its secrets. So we settled for the impending

evening, and traced pictures in the stars

until the moon bade that we slumber.

You disappeared when my eyes had

shut, though I could still hear you breathily

lamenting the plight of our stars, forever

immobile and unreachable.

At last we drifted into dreams, though who

first entered, I remember not. I danced with you,

stranger, atop the forest's canopy, and I wonder

with whom you might have danced behind closed

eyes.

A tender requiem of rain awakened me in the haze

of dawn, and you had disappeared – slipped through

the spaces between my fingers like so many sparkling

droplets of rain.

As I Sail

The ocean breathes gently with an ancient rhythm

and whispers lullabies to rivers and fires.

The waters roll over and tumble the seashells

and write endless epitaphs for the lost.

Thousands of sailors and warriors on journeys

gave their last kisses to the freezing brine.

And under the guiding arms of a lighthouse

we steer beyond the shoals that are their graves.

I remember, as I sail, the ship that had left me;

the hull met the shoreline of a distant island.

A storm began to blow and it left me freezing,

but it left me with a newfound home.

Stranger

A whisper in the daylight rolls into darkness

and fades away into the stars.

Inward flow the echoes

and outward show the scars.

A figure in the rain, somberly walking,

treading by the roses in the garden.

Old memories of fires and gravestones

trickle down into the soil.

But footsteps and echoes now rest beneath the roses

and soon they will rot away.

But even if that grave were to come unraveled,

we'd find nothing but shadows of the past.

Oh, dearest stranger, the road you had traveled

had miles of shattered dreams to come.

Home, yes, home, the wonder you had wanted

now lies beneath a pile of broken ash.

Willow

The ice on the willows fell over you

and I felt snow falling all around.

You reached out in silence and brushed my hands

but I could not walk with you beyond the storm.

The frozen forest held mysteries

that have long lain undiscovered.

I know not what you saw or what you were thinking,

but it's clear that it all disappeared.

Oh, no, a crying shadow,

teardrops and snowflakes stream gently down;

I found you under the icy willow

that night when the forest was your grave.

The sleet and the snowflakes fell under you

and at home, I watched the sun go down.

You marched out in wonder at a beautiful hour

while moonlight was shining from over the hills.

The earthy meadow held beautiful skies

and nightly it blessed us with sparkling stars.

I saw your footsteps fade away from the village

when you dashed out to comfort the moon.

Leave me, I'll watch the horizon

until you return from your journey.

But I found you under the icy willow

that night when the forest was your grave.

The lamp in the window watched over you

and I watched the light flicker all around.

I reached out in silence and touched your hand

to awaken you into a glorious morn.

Our sleepy village knew age and youth,

and mothers, sisters, and brothers.

But you had a wild taste for adventure

and a heart that knew no earthly fear.

Go, go, I can see you grow restless

while the red glow of daybreak fades into blue.

Then I found you under the icy willow

that night when the forest was your grave.

The ice on the willows fell over you

and I felt snow falling all around.

You reached out in silence and brushed my hands

but I could not walk with you beyond the storm.

The frozen forest held mysteries

that have long lain undiscovered.

I know not what you saw or what you were thinking,

but it's clear that it all disappeared.

Oh, no, a crying shadow,

teardrops and snowflakes stream gently down;

I found you under the icy willow

that night when the forest was your grave.

White Ink

The storm began gently,

cooing like some young animal.

Snowflakes silently laid themselves on the ground;

not in protest, but in peace and restfulness

well-deserved after such a long journey.

I too have traveled a while,

making my mark and melting away at dawn,

to leave an empty bed or the ashes

of a campfire behind.

The snowdrifts and ice floes, along

their respective roads and rivers,

tell stories of the storm and how

it came to be.

But what began as flurries soon erupted

into a blizzard. An icy blur smeared

white ink everywhere–

frozen lakes became frozen meadows,

valleys became glaciers, and sight became blindness.

Behind me, my footprints returned to an untouched

slate. My hair changed from black to white,

and my fingers and toes from white to black.

And the stories of the snowdrifts and ice floes

become unwritten again.

They plead to be remembered.

The lacy white calligraphy that sprinkled

and detailed the landscape grew into a flood,

a massive spill of wordless, blank ink that

obscured what surely was a grand and

compelling narrative.

I too have felt the icy chill wash over me

and erase me, and while I was purified by clean

crystals of water, I was purged.

The white ink still coated my sight when I awoke,

but I found that it was not snow. No,

it was the walls of a place where the fallen cannot stand,

the standing may not wander, and where the stories

may not escape.

Islands

I've spent another day asleep.

Numb to the world, to the cold.

The sirens and alarms drifted by as I slept,

never fully waking me. It's as if I'm on

a floating island, drifting aimlessly across the ocean.

Ships pass close, islands, continents too. Lately,

some of the islands seem impossibly far away.

I reach out with my arms and eyes, waving

and looking for someone to wave back.

But when we pass close together, when our islands meet,

a harbor is closed. A boat is leaking. The tide is low.

Something stands obstinately in the way. A stone sentinel,

reaching his hands into the ocean, declares that this too

shall not pass. That now is neither the time nor the place.

Then I must choose to fight the sentinel and lose,

or return to a solemn slumber and never win.

I must choose to rebel or to hope; to fight and die trying,

or to remain and gaze longingly at the horizon,

waiting for that island to come back into view.

So I slept, and each day when I wake,

I wave to my neighbor in the ocean beyond.

My neighbor waves back, and for a moment, we feel energy.

We feel a connection, a bond, even across the ocean's breadth.

But then the moment passes when the sentinel's hand once again

brings down a fog thick enough to sink a ship.

It conjures waves that could drown a continent, only to divide

two lonely islands.

And only to send them back to sleep for another fruitless dawn to come.