A single candle
A widow open
             An arm cascades

Falling, like autumn leaves,
Drifting through the air,
Guided by the wind,
In shades of red and yellow fair.
But as they touch the ground,
Their colors start to fade,
Turning brown and battered,
Before they pass away.
Beaten, tattered, and torn,
All hopes of happiness forlorn.

I journey towards the night
watching the light recede.
Awaiting me, an unsteady
dreamscape of losing
things and beings
and never finding them.

But, there is also the ocean,
of waves cradling me to sleep
with the lullaby of my name’s
repetition- marooning me  
from the sound of others,
the fears, anxieties to come.

Yet, my unconscious tugs me
towards the new tomorrow, forcing
my drowsy mind to count backwards
from sixty to one, until the gravity and  
heaviness retreats into the
light and life to come—

the awakening that  turns
the dark blue inside to light blue sky,
the rising eastern glow that is
the morning star affirming
to my eyelids that this dark life
was just a dream of my fretful mind.

Awaiting me, the to-do list of my morning:
the ritual of the toilet, scale, finger ******,
Psyllium powder stirred in water, catering
to my dog’s and wife’s love language of
gourmet kibble and Nescafe— an  A.M.  life
measured out in watery tablespoons of love.

The cadence of my feet lives itself out in
thirty steps and half minute treks, a sacred
pitter-patter in rhythm with my breath that
allows the traumas of the past- the dead, the
cancers, the broken houses destroyed and rebuilt-
to exist in hidden memories and bad dreams.

The world is asleep,

lightly breathed upon and kissed --


by the rising sun.

night drapes
day spreads
stars emit light
moons conceal dark
around the north star-fire
away from the south moon-water
stars journey
moons remain
in their wake
at their rest
stories extend
stories retract

Wading through the waters of the past
You know this feeling will not last
But the rain just won't cease to pour
This life is known to be just a bore
Filling up your past with water
Gone with the flood is your poor old daughter
Raveging through cities and towns
Stand up on your roof so you won't drown
But in that tall wall of destruction
Is a body in need of reconstruction
Begging you to jump into it
Tell your mother you’ll be back in a bit
Back with a new friend that she doesn’t like
After the flood strike
You’ve changed beyond recognition

The embers fade
from passing year
and turn to ash,
then disappear.

A span of time
that fades to black
now melts into
earth’s deepest cracks.

From murky fog
and blackest night
emerge first shoots
of new year bright.

Now from grey ash
of burnt-out past
the shoots are fed
’til new dawn’s flash.