Home

I'm in a marriage counseling session 24 years ago
The assignment is to draw your idea of home.
I drew a house with a backyard,
filled with raspberry bushes,
blackberry bushes,
apple trees ,
peach trees,
pear trees.
There are no people in my picture.

You and I marry on a cold and snowy February day 21 years ago.
The flower girl gets shy,
The photographer gets an attitude.
That burger from Hardee's was the best thing ever.
We move to an apartment,
I can only dream of buying a home.

Another year passes.
We look for a house.
I have three requirements;
Two toilets, because no one should have to wait in line to pee.
Room to plant that fruit in the backyard.
The right school system.
Each time we look at a house you tell me the foundation is bad.
I begin to wonder if you can really know that or if you just say that.

18 years have passed.
You must have known about foundations because ours still seems to be holding us up.
That sweet flower girl has created a beautiful life of her own.
Now it is just us.
We ran our rat race and jumped off the train
Tumbled down the embankment,
Lucky to not have broken much important.
Haggard and worn, we still reflect the love we see when we look at one another.

We piece together interests
Build new ones
Redefine our life
Rebuild our desires, along with three cars and five motorcycles.
We set out together along this path we are freshly paving.
Towards our new life,
faltering a moment here and there on the loose gravel
but having enough life experience between us to laugh it off
and I know it will be okay.

Take away the berries
The toilets (no not really)
The foundation
The vehicles
We can always start over
We can always rebuild.

You. You are my home.

Reclamation

Green Lilliputians
Courageously restraining
The motorized horse

Roots

Wrangling the weeds
Tending the untended
Regaining control

La Verdad

No puedo escribir la verdad
La verdad de mio no es tuya
Solo puedo escribir mi verdad

Dread

Sometimes I feel the things that I dread lie mostly in my head.
Then I think that my imaginary woes keep my focus off  life's sorrows
from bridges that fall
when materials degrade
and repairs are not made
People who get shot
walking through places
others say they ought not
Towers and shuttles
that fall from the sky
one from intent
the other from a blind eye
So when my head is intent on lying
about whether I belong, if I am good enough or even trying.
These are feelings I have power to absolve
I ignite anger and fight
for my identity with resolve
In a world so wild, so large, so full
I seem to fall through the cracks
I have no real control
So I choose the reality provided by my mind
The out which nature allots to all humankind.

Winter Solstice

Night grows longer
Cold grows deeper
Weary days turn from one into another
We long.
Long for the Sun
Long for the Warmth
The rain, The buds, the bugs.

Cocooned in fleece and down.
Curled on the couch, Reading a book.
Waiting. Like the four of swords.
While She sleeps.
Her frosty breath freezing our noses and ears.
Her silence, deep and strong.
She rebuilds from within,
Her life hidden from the naked eye.

Hot cocoa, cookies, traditions, warm the heart.
Entertain the mind, Keep us looking ever forward.
Allowing us to pass the time.
Trust in the coming Spring.
Our desire does not affect Her.

She will awaken in her own time.