beside the River

Remember the cabin among the trees hidden like rabbits resting in nests of autumn leaves?  By the window that looks out on the river there is a writer’s desk  with printing ink and fresh flowers on the sill,  froths of tenderness kissed by the sun.
Can you recall the  warm days we shared  among redwoods that spoke to us?  The memory evokes such nostalgia for that ache, fierce with crushing devotion. I left a heart shaped basket of seeds in the arch of a tree for the birds to scatter.  I will always  remember you and the cabin by the river,  the sultry nights I would dance for you,    sheer layers floating  to the herringbone floor.

Nothing has Changed

When dreams pull me under

I call out across the ocean

You meet me at  the shore

and there is nothing to  hold to

but silvery shadows that cross

and uncross in our slumbering sea.

I bend to you  fragile as  sea foam

tossed in wind rifts  released

from unfastened hands. 

This is how I love you

a prisoner of  repetition

like endless waves you come and go.

 

art by Victor Bauer

Estuary of Flowers

I step back from the light
into the dark

my wife rocks
herself to sleep
in my favorite chair.

 

On the beach

I want to fly but fall like

a silent prayer.

My limbs are an anchor

as I slip beneath the surface.

Once struggling palms lie flat

as gentle waves rock me.

Seaweed strands of hair mingle

with the sigh of my breath,

I grasp the hands of my

companions,

my only thing of value.

Everything beautiful is here,

all that was lost.

Birds chorus to the stones that

mark the  resting place of a

thousand warriors   in an

estuary of flowers.

art by Abel Tasman

 

 

Like an animal

In the mist of dreams the touch of your skin is tinder igniting a flare becoming a flame. Your eyes seek out the savage in me.  Here we are still lovers  and like starving animals  we devour  each other with weak bites never completely consuming  one another. 

National Geographic

whir of days

Comes  the days when we

reach back into seas of

pinpoint diamonds where like

globes of fire we spun through

glimmering heavens yielding

only to the pull of hearts.

Now the dew falls from our eyes

Not from  the sky, the tide pulls

outward and mountains lose

their foothold but a new sun

is rising and we are touched by

the tongue of deepening wisdom

and   burning indignation.

 

 

 

 

 

Majestic Birds

I watched him stride down the boardwalk,  sit down beside me to people watch pale tourists glowing  in the sun. My eyes caught the light that shown through his lips and his elegant hands lifting and dropping like majestic birds.  In the long shadows of dusk  there are questions in need of  soft answers, sunsets slipping down the horizon like hands  over sun warmed thighs.  He is a sweet  breeze through a  tropical garden but the sea is enough for me. It’s salty breeze lifting my chin.

 

Art by Steve Hanks

 

 

 

The Gold

Nights while you sleep

 my lips are so close I can

draw your breath in like an

infant at its mother’s breast.

I  run my fingers down the curve

of your spine lean in to breathe

your smokey scent.

I have entered that golden part of you

immersed the sea that claimed me in

oceans of fiery sunsets.

When our hearts grow mute we will know

we have drifted too near the sun

 

art by Karol Bak

 

 

soft as cotton

Insects large and small flit

through the  lemony filter of dense canopies.

In hushed whispers we point to a clearing

where a roe fawn nibbles at pine needles.

Clouds  soft as cotton brush the crowns of ancient trees

below  a  hanging mist clings to  blonde foothills.

You pluck a  marigold to tuck behind my ear

your  golden hand print left on my thigh.

I wind a garland of leaves around your wrist

close enough to run my fingers through your hair

carry your scent back home with me.

 

 

Deborah Gryka  “Turtle Woods”

 

 

 

Waiting To Inhale

Confined in that  labyrinth

translucent limbs wore her down

She  dreamed of honey and coconut milk

transparent lids  and fingertips

sucked into fragile rose-bud lips.

Captive in that barrier

imprisoned in shifting walls

falling through  nautical twilight

hope cast its shadow on us.

Happy Mother’s Day

 

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

 

Rotorelle sings

Visit the original to read this in full, so beautiful!

 

Woodsy the Performance Poet

Always a little wonky and a little wild and a little frayed, mainly because she was never entirely sure how to draw herself (even with the entire sky as her paintbox), 

Rotorelle swooped her way through strange and turbulent times…

and when people saw her, blazing a trail over angry protest marches, they raised their guns and their flags and their attitude mottos in her honour, expecting her to be a real badass.

But her song of choice, for all the vibrant colours of its melody, was a deeply gentle one.

It was the one song she could never ignore… the one song she could never switch off… the one song that caught in her breath and died in the sunset…

as vulnerable as the light from distant floating stars…

~~~~~~~

Such a tender face I saw,
dancing with all the things I’m not.

Such a tender face I saw,

View original post 66 more words