There is The House
(Object of Desire)

There is the house where children used to play
and laughed upon a swing that swung
behind the neighbor’s fence.
Was it not the place that held a memory,
of you and I or maybe only me?

It’s pink, that house that holds a banyan tree,
where flooded streets once bled canoes
upon their gravel tops
like hungry shores, yet a simple place
each number marked where station wagons parked.

Abandoned when you left it back in time,
now hollowed eyes, its windows never see.
There’s no light that warms the glass
no gathered drape against the frosty chill
an entrance beckoned, now it never will.

Oh how I wish to let that old house know.
The one where all the children used to go
they’d march around the benched lanai,
blowing horns at bees who lost their wings
from pulling strings through trees. It was I

who lived there very long ago. Pink house,
don’t you remember when I slept inside
saying prayers each night until I cried?
Was it not that place that held a memory
of you and I or maybe only me?

~For my Mother~

Pockets full of you

(I'm Packing Things for Heaven)


If you left me in the Springtime
Then the birds would halt their song
Quelling singing while you’re leaving
To signify how wrong,

If you left me in the Summer
Oh the rivers wouldn’t roll,
With all pebbles parched for moisture
From the babble that you stole.

If you left me in the Autumn
When the leaves begin to turn,
They would stop their color changing
Till the year you might return.

If you left me in the Winter
Then the rain would never fall
For a protest from the Heavens,
As if Angels heard my call.

Yet you left me in the evening,
when the seasons weren’t aware
as a secretive departure
that’s left silence everywhere.

And I feel a sobered sadness
With a chill that’s seeping through,
Each day I wear your overcoat
With pockets full of you.