Touch the surface
Touch the light
Touch my skin
Touch my eyes
With your eyes
Touch the surface
Touch the pond
Feel the ripples
Hold the gold
Let us love
The same light together

It’s too bad Ruth closed her fruit stand.
She’d sell fresh produce from the county
On a little piece of land she owned.
Ruth had an earth grain to her skin
Like bushels of greens, baskets of pears.
She loved to smile and talk,
Her heart as pure as sunlight on soil.
She had the wisdom of nature
And grit of work to her banter.
Now, when I drive past the stand,
It just looks abandoned, like Ruth
Had wandered into the wilderness,
And the blades of a standing fan
She left behind, turn without power,
Turn with the seasons, and haven’t stopped.

These are spring clouds
Lingering behind leafless trees,
Spreading into purest blue.
Am I seeing things again,
Or is it just a case of pareidolia?
Faces bright with sunlight,
Angels in my skies,
Swans in my eyes,
Milkweed on my mind,
Apple blossoms in my rhyme,
Heaps of assurance
For fairer weather.

I remember being poor–
On the coldest nights of winter
We slept in the kitchen,
The oven on, warming the air.

We lived along the Detroit river,
Just a step away from fireworks.
We’d watch ships sail by
Or explore the train-yard,
Its tracks leading
To places that shone with gold.

We lived in a post-war bungalow,
Its gabled roof bowing to time,
A hushed skeleton of wood and nail.
The walls, cold as morning steel,
Held the quiet of working hands.

My father worked hard,
My clothes were hand-me-downs.
One brother built his own bike
From discarded scraps.

My older brother was a pin-setter
At a bowling alley nearby,
And both fought street gangs
So the streets would let them pass.

A “blind pig” bar was beside us…

And once, a violent pimp
With some of his girls, moved in–
Till the cops shut them down.

We might have been poor,
The walls were thin,
Cold slipped in like an unwanted guest,
And outside, the night was filled
With sirens, shouts, and breaking glass.

But inside– my parents were in love.
They played the glorious voices
Of tenors and sopranos,
Drowning out a prostitute’s screams,
Dragged by the hair
Or choked and slapped on the street.

When drunks stumbled
Out of the Drake Tavern
They dropped change
We’d divvy up for candy.
We didn’t have a lot
But we had each other.

It didn’t matter where we lived,
Our parents were rich in love,
Their music and laughter,
The wealth of our joy
And family was our fortune.

Carnival at dusk–
Summer slips away too fast.
I stumble off, dizzy.

Rifles behind glass—
Our hands, forbidden to touch,
Silent in their rule.

A hawk climbs the sky,
Into a cloud, snow begins–
Its wings stir the flakes.

They said he was sleeping,
But a child knows better still—
No breath from Grandpa.

A weir dressed in blooms,
Morning glories wrap the stone–
A robe of flowers.

It’s night, a plum drops–
Into the rain barrel’s quiet,
Ripples kiss the moon.

An eastern bluebird
Warbles softly by a brook.
Songs echo between.

Wind stirs pear tree petals,
They fall like snow on my skin.
Years drift with each breeze.

At the hospital,
Waiting for results,
A sick child smiles back, playful.

Unloading melons
The sun cracks in half, and we
Eat lunch from the source.

Plum tree in full bloom–
A divine girl bathed by night,
Soft leaves catch the moonlight.

White mandevilla—
A woman’s face, then gone in air,
Yellow eyes still glow.

February is like a phantom
Passing swiftly through the door.
It’s the soul-month of the year,
The snowdrop, the little month.
Love whom you love
With all the love you have
For time will not wait.
None of us are going home.
You won’t keep your name,
It’ll burn out like a flame.
Even the lamb that strayed
Will be found to be splayed.
Passengers on a ship of fools,
It’s for you I come to shrive.
February is like a ghost,
It glides across the floor.
What is any of it about?
You and I are all we have.
Happy birthday February!
From Imbolc soars a silver ball,
And then that will be all.

My first reckoning with amazement,
One of my grandfather’s rain barrels
Overgrown with blue and white morning glories,
Rooted to the green height of summer.
A blossoming barrel, a flowering topiary,
Like a sleeping bear covered by sun petals,
Breathing and alive in a deeper life,
With rainwater rainbows and interlaced light,
With climbing, winding, twining vines,
Growing even from the barrel’s cavity,
Flowing up, out, and over,
Also floating on the waters at the rim.
A tropical boscage, soft to every sense,
A magical flowering of vision
For a child steeped in creation’s dream,
Alive in the stillness of discovery,
With hummingbirds, a half-dozen bright,
Arriving to lift the barrel into light.

Happy Birthday to my father,
Though he’s been gone so long
I think of him every day,
And wish that he were here.
I wish he’d met my children,
And seen the man I’d grown to be.
No doubt I’d be more patient.
No doubt he’d have forgiven me.