What your body remembers

Skin remembers
the warm kiss of sun
chasing away night
and its cold, stiff memories
banishing them until later.

Palms remember
the crush of hearts
as they hold them tight
balancing their give
and take for tomorrow.

Soles remember
the cling of sand grains
hot, dry and black underfoot
like dreams and nightmares
that return in pieces in the dark.

The Wooden Pier

It can not be walked, the wooden pier
that once gripped land and stretched far
out into the sea carrying the weight
of young children and fathers, fishing. Now
fog claims its end
and battered boards repel footsteps.
Some misplaced timbers turn pleasure-walking
into land locked distant viewing. Perhaps
it is better this way, watching the water lap
the wharf, seeking the image
between fog-filled drapes, better seen
from the shore, better as our memories
embellish unforgotten moments.

Spring wind

The petals to and fro in answer
echoing the need of the breeze
and the psalmy lightness of Spring.

The whip of the wind stirs them
until the pink mix twirls
in the curl of unseen breath

and are whisked away to land,
to rot back into the land
as food for the future hungry.

Weeds

The weeds stand tall, stiff in death
after the spray as worked its slow way
from grounded root to sky-raised vein,
not swaying with dawn's gentle breeze,
not relishing the moisture the air carries.

There is no life among them, no green bud
promising to bloom, no seedlings bursting
from seed pods. Even the birds have left them,
knowing brown cannot mean feasting.

Come Home

It is with promise that I write to you. Bright
Spring sun on a cloudless morning cheers
the heart, lifts the soul to soar silently,

serenely beyond reach. I want you to know
the purity of the golden hour, how it caresses
tree bark, encourages cherry blossom petals to arch

under its touch. I know
you are wind-swept, swallowed by great sands
that wash your sky. Your gold

is nothing like this. Harsh to the eye,
a tainted turning of richness to greed, a yellow dust
that settles and rots like rust on a land

that doesn't want you.
Come home, return here to where water
runs crystal clear and cold, where green

is trampled underfoot, where fire kills
to breed new life, to give it pause, not penance.

graffiti

We drive by
and it's not the letters
that catch our eye, but
the curves and colours
of lines. Black
fills the gaps, shadows
the highlights, the greens,
the blues. They began
with yellow, now buried
in the darkness, hidden
as spray cans swarm
the wall, smothering,
until black is the new white
and daylight puts them on top.

graffiti

I would like you to

lay on the grass
sunshine on your skin, while I feed
you stars and moonlight,
watch you pet rainbows
and straddle mountains
you can ride until dawn
tomorrow. I would like you to sleep
and dream of whirlpools,
sparkles scattered on your fingers
that you spin into a necklace
I can wear when you are gone.

Keep looking up

Between the first floor pilings,
sunrise strikes the water. Oddly
orange, it casts an inner glow

into a home gutted. A solitary fish,
searches for food, finds a floating doll
still smiling with empty blue eyes.

It's lighter, the dawn, eerily calm
only the water rushing through the streets
belies the last lazy summer days.

If we keep looking up, we can believe
the day will improve.