look and see
the morn is bright
and there is a bird
singing, as if for you
somewhere off and away
an unwary bard
lifting spirits
that it cannot perceive

there is always panic
when you hear the cry of

“MAN OVERBOARD!”

and in the drifting days
beneath the sun and
the afternoon haze
when hope fades
like colour beneath the moon
one can believe
one has lost their way
until the dawning awareness
that a head above water
is a mountaintop
in the midst of the vast
and glass flat seas

happiness arrives
as light sparkling on the sea,
crystals of foam tip the wave tops
that come between the troughs
moving in shadow beneath;
and i am learning to ride,
to tread along the peaks
that let me see that far off shore
getting closer as days go by

Two suns rose together
Above the eastern horizon
Bright eyes casting about
Witness the land awaken
From a long night’s slumber
Stretching beneath the warmth
Of twice the light
That ends a darker night
A binary pair
Dancing across skies
Held in mutual embrace
A timely waltz of grace

I am a bowl

I am a gully, a valley, a well

I am a depression

Into which all the rain gathers

I am a pool of fallen moisture

That condensed in the cold

And dropped from the heavens

To sit stagnant in my dark depths;

Oh to be a hill or a hummock

To be a mountain or a plateau

That the waters roll off of

As I dry in the wild winds

Beneath a warm embracing sun

The envy of each and every one

i never noticed
when the movement changed
or the orchesstra shifted;
the air remained the same
and the sun was as warm
but at some unknown moment
the psalms in my life became songs

and the music is just as sweet
as it was before
but perhaps
a little lighter
and i can play them louder
while i sing through
the remaining days

Matt met a demon
on his way into work
and it began to prod him
’til Matt said with a smirk

“there’s a lifetime of rage
bottled in this bone cage
just lookin’ for a reason
to rain down, to assuage
if you don’t want to cut that lock
turn ’round now, take a long walk…”

but demons and devils
aren’t known for their wit
and the fiend threw a stone
Matt’s head, it did hit
so the blood rolled down
and with a quiet, dead-eyed stare
Matt forgot what it was to love or to care

no one knows what happened next
the streets are different, as if they’ve been hexed
for now Matt walks in the demon’s skin
like a suit designed just for him to fit in
and nothing and no one
ever dares to come near
this devil of a man
who knows no fear

Every misty morning
With the shining rising sun
He went to the boats
And out to embrace the sea
Singing

“I sail away for life,
ever returning for thee”

Look – he cast his nets
And lived lost in his head
Warm in the breeze
Unaware of the day
The wind carried him away
Far from safe harbors
Out to where the waters were darker
Out past the point on the maps that said

“Here there be dragons”

And they thought he left on purpose
They thought he had evaporated
So they left him to the waves
And they went about their lives
When he was simply lost in the night
Far from the lighthouse
Crying lonely past the reefs
Seeking a way back
Sometimes hearing the far off bells
Rung in the mourning of his death,

And so he paddled harder…