As Winter

On the day of your birth a single sound pierced Winter;
your life’s first cry melted his heart like a flame.
Snow-covered hills arouse, a-pulse, and shiver;
the Sun also answers and stretches her arms to exclaim:

“Awake, O barren fields, from your frosty death!
Let frigid earth soften to form a flower’s cradle
warmed by dancing rays on the soil. Draw breath,
lily and rose; blossom and beautify April.”

How could I know that song as first it was sung
or what effect it had upon our world
twenty-one years past, five thousand miles flung,
when still my own days had but barely unfurled?

Surely it happened just so—to me seems clear,
for as Winter so I, whenever your voice I hear.

And They Danced

Your muse to my muse did beckon: come with me!
Let us dance a dance of friends. And yet our hearts
and hands but barely touched—we poised to flee
this timid waltz that moves in fits and starts.
Watching as you watch, your eyes betraying nothing,
but a glance, a glimmer, the briefest sparkles of twilight
that catch and flare beneath dark lashes, sweeping
‘cross graceful cheeks, sharp in my breast ignite
embers smoldering low, long scarcely warm.
I thought my heart had broken, but this rift
was a chamber shaped to fit your spirit’s form;
one step, contra step, and close at last we’ll drift,
fearful of rising hope as arms embrace
life offered anew, and yesterday’s erase.

Speaking in Slices

Portions of me are hid within my soul:
a wild serenity; passion couched in reflection,
beneath a weary semblance of control
there breathlessly anticipate perfection.
And in some rare sweet moments of each day
life’s rush subsides; the clamoring world is still.
With chaos hushed by evening, then I’ll say
what may be said and hungry silence fill
with precious seconds—voiceless thoughts rehearsed
to peel back layers shielding who we were.
Here lying sundered listening to the universe,
its silent realizations wake and stir.
Then minds, though sure embraced when first they met,
convergence of the heart may hope for yet.