Kickoff 2013
May You Always Find the Way Out of
Locked Places
A Gerbera daisy dropped
On a moist forest floor
In the lateness of your night
In the morning of my day
Hands reach across sheets
Hands reach across states
Fingertips touch sun-tanned
skin
Bathed in Mother Ocean
Dried by Brother Wind
In the early pre-dawn
Before roosters crow
Or owls fly home
I know you are awake
Next to nothing between us
Before the map of a planet
Our earthen nature absorbs
The shock and terror
We know capable of love
Your grotto filled with water
Once empty the day before
The fire pit spat ash
Burned from dead flowers
Covered us like dust used to
find
Crime scene fingerprints
Pilfered bamboo survives
Huddled in a clump
Plot of dirt saved for
flowers
Chairs circle sacred space
Guarded by the old woman
living
On the wild corner of the lot
She stirs her iron vat of
brine
Boils down our bone baggage
Until the yellow marrow melts
Wheel barrow the color of
rust
Mixing bowl for bloody mortar
Bonds your flat rock children
Wall sloped for sliding rain water
Sets pumice cinder-blocks in
cement
Sharpens the corners around
my heart
Trees with poison ivy spread
red pain
Tree with chain embedded in
bark rind
Trunk absorbs pain and strain
it survives
Tannenbaum thanked three
times
Held green bushy needles
close
The pine surrendered to the
New Year.
