Cold hard sharpened blades cut deep grooves,
biting forcefully into the icy sheet.

Spinning and sliding and laughing
Pushing one foot ahead, then the other, then the other,
gliding effortlessly over the ice.
A deep cold refreshing breath.
Thrilled and revitalized with the smooth speed.

While nothing lies ahead, a sinuous trail stalks.
A thin film of water created only by the blades pressing firmly
             upon the ice, melting and paving the way ahead.

-AM

Stars fuse atoms
Atoms form diamonds
Diamonds solidify lovers
Lovers congeal families

-AM

The flight of life is so brief
fragile vulnerable incredible

The goldilocks zone so eloquently positioned,
is her porridge to thick or thin?
Hot or cold?

It is this thickness and thinness that permits our being.
Viscosity surrounds us with its turbulent beauty.

Flight is everywhere. In the skies, in the seas.
The fish fly gracefully climbing and diving
swooping from side to side
Our hearts squeeze and throb, ebbing blood
as periodic as the planets
Air floods our lungs, although sustaining
binds us to such a small rock in such a large world

The gravity of this holds us together while
we struggle to fly beyond our bounds.

-AM

There is nothing scarier than being fearless.

-AM

Innocence, adolescent, coalescence

The rain patters and beats over and over
as wind rushes through the nervous horizon.
Each time the mist touches down, a great electric arc leaps
between them.  The storm
smiles and looks over the land with its vivid blue grey clouds.
It is a beautiful storm that nurtures and enchants all the trees, sidewalks, and homes.
It is a storm that cannot return enough.
Thunder doesn’t roar but giggles.
Wind doesn’t shriek but caresses.
The rain beats faster and faster, eagerly flooding.

-AM

(Lines on the loss of the “Titanic”)

          I
     In a solitude of the sea
     Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

          II

     Steel chambers, late the pyres
     Of her salamandrine fires,
Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

          III

     Over the mirrors meant
     To glass the opulent
The sea-worm crawls—grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

          IV

     Jewels in joy designed
     To ravish the sensuous mind
Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

          V

     Dim moon-eyed fishes near
     Gaze at the gilded gear
And query: “What does this vaingloriousness down here?”. . .

          VI

     Well: while was fashioning
     This creature of cleaving wing,
The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

          VII

     Prepared a sinister mate
     For her—so gaily great—
A Shape of Ice, for the time fat and dissociate.

          VIII

     And as the smart ship grew
     In stature, grace, and hue
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

          IX

     Alien they seemed to be:
     No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history.

          X

     Or sign that they were bent
     By paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one august event,

          XI

     Till the Spinner of the Years
     Said “Now!” And each one hears,
And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.