Once in a dream (for once I dreamed of you)
  We stood together in an open field;
  Above our heads two swift-winged pigeons wheeled,
Sporting at ease and courting full in view.
When loftier still a broadening darkness flew,
  Down-swooping, and a ravenous hawk revealed;
  Too weak to fight, too fond to fly, they yield;
So farewell life and love and pleasures new.
Then, as their plumes fell fluttering to the ground,
  Their snow-white plumage flecked with crimson drops,
    I wept, and thought I turned towards you to weep:
  But you were gone; while rustling hedgerow tops
Bent in a wind which bore to me a sound
    Of far-off piteous bleat of lambs and sheep.

And old is the dust that flows
Through city veins
The stampede of time like footfalls on concrete line the furrowed brow of a 45 year old man in profile in the fading light of day

Under the shimmering sun,
fingers intertwined,
We looked at kids with water guns,
running in the blind.

dancing in endless laughter,
Our eyes were drowned;
Yet I can’t  see the color
that paints you around.

Alas, I found myself in bed
mourning for the hands;
The ones that were in my head
turned into the sands.

In dusk-lit fields where shadows lean,
The sunflowers bow, a sullen scene
Their golden heads in somber trance,
Charmed by the storm’s relentless dance.

They wear the rain like cloaks of night,
A lover’s touch both fierce and slight.
They ache beneath the tempest’s breath,
Bound to a beauty carved by death.

Roots entangled, darkly tied,
They crave the storm yet long to hide.
Bending close yet standing tall,
Bruised by the rain but enthralled by the fall.

When morning breaks, they tilt toward dawn,
But hold the night in petals drawn.
They shine by scars no sun can see
A love that’s forged in agony.

At lunch I bought a pear,
its shape: a quiet joke.
I cut it clean and slowly,
the blade, the slice, the poke.

It tasted like a breather,
not sweet, just real and right.
Like silence in the stairwell
or breezes late at night.

The afternoon unknotted,
each task a gentler climb.
I fed the cat. I folded shirts.
You’re not here. I’m fine.