IRENE

living yet silent
gritting your teeth and steeling your sinews
standing sodden
green with moss and dripping with rain
you raise your beleaguered eyes
through your dripping hair
and long for the calm
your roots represent

UNTITLED

thank you for the roses
by the wayside

thank you for the thorns

PORTMANTEAU

it was as if the word circled itself
on page 19
but certainly I must have done it
sometime after 3 a.m.
when I read your words
and asked, "What does that mean?"

you explained
and I fell
and the pen dragged
around the page

THOUGHTS ON A BIKE RIDE

Promise me we won't ever get a satellite dish

or use vinyl siding

or have a two-car garage


Promise me you'll sit with me on the porch

and help me garden in the yard

and ride with me like this

WRITING PROMPT: WHERE I WOULD LIKE TO GO ON VACATION AND WHY

I want to sail with my brother in Arichat harbor

on a boat he made with his own two hands.

We'll watch the Atlantic White-Sided Dolphins

race and feed alongside our boat.

When the sun gets low, we'll pull her into shore

and share a glass of wine on our porch.

June 2008

MISSION OF HOPE

this is what chosen feels like

closed eyes
bowed head
smoothed hair

and His hands on my face

eyes wide open

Colossians 3:12

ON DESCRIBING HANNEKE CASSEL'S FIDDLE

strong as sinew
and golden as honey

you sway with that amber appendage
like a stick of butter
that doesn't melt in your hands

but it could