Chapter 6 of Middle World Chronicles published

Chapter 6 of Middle World Chronicles: An Illustrated Spiritual Memoir has been published on Issuu.com.

Exquisite Etching

Winter morning,

Exquisite etching of the tree…

The moral structure.

Previously published in San Francisco Poetry, Art, and Music.

The Crow

The crow stands still

on a limb in the fog

wrapped content

in his grey.

Remnants

As we were ending the last real visit with my mother, I turned on the porch to look back, and my mother gathered her strength, smiled, and waved goodbye to me.

When I returned to see her, about a week later, everything looked pretty much the same except something vital was missing. There was the house with her stamp on all its contents, but it was like she herself had already gone. She had deteriorated so much that as I saw her lying in her bed, it was like seeing someone I did not know. Someone that was wearing mother's pajamas. It was like coming upon a place where a spring thunderstorm had just passed...evidence of the storm everywhere, the water glistening on every blade of grass, dripping from the leaves of trees, and running in rivulets into pools and streams. The atmosphere, charged with the aftermath of lightning, holding the silence of the rolling thunder, which had rolled away beyond all hearing. And all that was left were the remnants.

And in ways like the aftermath of a thunderstorm, as time goes by, the rain and the pain will have soaked into the earth to return eventually as fond memories and wildflowers... pushing up to bask in the sun. Especially the Bluebonnets. The Bluebonnets that she loved so much and that are perpetually reflected in her painting that hangs in my home.

The Standing People

The Standing People

wrap the quietness

of winter fog

about their bare branches.

Previously published in hoi polloi II, p. 6.

Sundial

The sundial waits

in the middle of the night

for a shadow.

Previously published in hoi polloi II, p. 6.

The North Wind

The north wind blows

through empty trees

and your own

lost leaves.