Old Alone

It isn’t that my thumb tenses when I hold a knife

Or that my knees can sense

The coming of the rains

It’s not the white hairs that wave hello

Or the mismanagement of money hard earned

It is the silence in between the laughs

The look of the night sky,

The breeze the blows through maturing bones

As I carry in the groceries.

I’m getting older and I must accept it.

The chirping of endless crickets

That sound muffled over the whirl of the highway

It is the silence in between text messages

The fascination with wine

It is the frustration with technology

And the gravity that makes my belly sag

But mostly it is the isolation of moments

That should be spent with others

It is the need to capture the instances

That I alone bear witness to

It is the stretch of summer nights

Waiting for the exhaustion to shut my mind down

It is the look in my dog’s eyes

As he lays at the foot of my bed

Wondering why he can’t make it

To my pillow.

Among Sounds of Many Colors

And if I said I missed you
It would fall short of explaining
the way my heart is on auto pilot
the moment I hear the cadence of your voice.
A timbre so calm it reminds me of late spring streams
Which were once snow banks
In lands I have only read of
But whose boundaries I eagerly peer in to.
Like a child, peaking behind a curtain.

And if I said I slept better last night,
It is because you are Shah of all dreams
Per chance to see you on your thrown
Smiling down at me
Pulls me into the deepest slumber
Where you show me the spot
Where all the worlds do meet.

And if I said, you take my breath away
I would be lying
Because you are the oxygen
In the waters of a thousand lagoons
Which pool my mind
Allowing seas to swell to life
And give birth to creatures who swim
Into the core of me
And float on the surface of my every word

And when you find me panting
It is only because your scent lingers on my palate,
a heavy perfume to decorate my senses.
You are the incense I pray along side
You are the heady smell of faraway territories,
Which are ruled by men far greater than I.
As I ponder…what would it take to meet you eye to eye?
The way I already obsess of you heart to mind?

And if I said you do so much for me,
It is not a reflection of counted deeds
But of uncounted times
Where the thought of you
Takes me away from the sorrow that is existence.
From the tribulation that is today
From the longing that is this moment
And the next moment
And every moment, until
My lips smile as you draw me near
And tell me what colors you see in my melody
As I sing you to sleep.