You have always stood
beneath a dazzling array of bright colors
Brilliant, and brave, and blinding
Your light provided bright reflections
and lit the stage upon which you danced
careless, joyful, and exuberant
It was a separate light that bathed me
not quite so radiant
and full of shadows
It has never illuminated my way
nor has it warmed me in its beam
It was what it seemed
an insignificant blue glow, dim and misleading
In your light, you were found
In mine, everything was lost
Before the ashes, Vulcan’s vengeful fire.
Before the sex, a deep and burning desire
Before the storm, a dark and restless quiet;
Before the morning, a deep and somber night.
Before the hunt, the frightened fleeing fox,
Before the race, coiled tightly in starter’s blocks.
Before the cut, such soft unblemished skin;
Before the blade, sparks fly, the whetstone spins.
Before new love, the queasy, nauseous start;
Before the kiss, a young and hopeful heart.
Before rejection, all things possible, bright, and new;
Before enlightenment, faith in what we say and do.
Before Sun’s rays, dark clouds enshroud the planet
Before the sculptor, Creation locked in blocks of granite.
Before the fall, transcendence true and boldly rising;
Before the gasp, in silent awe, a sweet surprising.
Before the rose arises first the lowly bloom –
Before the family, a dark and empty room.
Before old age comes the child full of life!
Before victory, the pain of loss and bitter strife.
Before the Universe, a bright and solitary star
Before the nearness, a cold and distant far
Before the night, a day of brilliant cerulean blue
Before the “Us,” a prayer for joining “Me” to “You”
I stride the gently sloping
foothills of the hollow,
Boots damp and darkened
by the morning dew.
Diminutive and insubstantial
beneath blue ridges.
Overhead, Grandfather mountain
stands sentinel;
His emerald peak
piercing gray-bottomed clouds
Hung like Caesar’s wreath
upon a royal head.
Orange, red, yellow –
relentless in their magnificence.
An ocean of autumn-dyed leaves
blanket the hills;
Like Momma’s prize quilts
at the summer fair.
Hickory-laced smoke
wafts thick and fragrant,
Drifting upward through
the alder and pine stands,
Like holy incense
blessing this hallowed ground
The meadows are dotted
with rusting memories
Broken tractors, refrigerators,
and dying cars
Sunlight glinting off shards
of broken ‘shine jugs
Shacks with slanting porches
and broken doors;
Crushed beneath the weight
of time and seasons
These hills wear poverty
like a badge of honor
It all began
with the glowing green meadows
cool, dew-moistened blades of grass
softly pressed into the shape of a
child’s naked feet running
frivolous and joyous
in the backyards of my innocence.
In time, the azure-blue skies
puffed with the carefree
brilliant white cotton-candy clouds
of my adolescence fed my wandering dreams,
lifting me to new heights,
pressing me tenderly against the heavens.
In my teen years, the skies grew heated
beneath the raging, orange-flecked
storms battering
the massive walls of my pubescent limitations.
I fought bravely against
the darkening forces shaping me,
but was laid low one day
with the sizzling strike of a silver bolt of lightning;
my body then forged in the ruby red-hot fires of puberty.
As a young man, there came a day
with you in it, that a star as yellow-bright and full of light
washed over me, igniting my purpose and possibility.
I was blinded by the sheer beauty and intensity
of the nearness of you, awakening within me the
amazing brilliant white glow of desire, love, and hope.
Eventually, the purple-black sheet of night
was pulled over me; the skies darkened
to a deep onxy and I was left lying in the
of the shadow of Death.
The lights dimmed as did my voice,
and the murky fingers of Death reached toward me.
I was immediately lifted up
into a new beginning,
as the soothing winds of forever
upon the palette of my life and
once more dipped my heels into
the forgiving green blades of grass
to paint eternity’s meadow.
The Winter Bites My Bones 