Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time
I told a tale
I did not hear
that hot wind wail,
imagination
setting sail
across a sea of obsession.

But here I sit
and hear the sound
of magic whirling
round and round
image, symbol,
word unbound
the engine of my travels.

Between the stars
and midnight sea
I sail to find
just what can be
teased into
words of fantasy
one keystroke at a time.

Imagination
into tale -
the words, they own me
as I sail.
They push me into
What If's gale -
the telling has my soul.

One of These Days

One of those days
where
I sit and ponder
the odd images
that stream
through my mind
the touch
of raw wool
running through
my fingers
mythologies
that almost
no one remembers
the feel
of wet sand
on a winter's day
thinking of
what I would
really
rather be doing
and realize
just how
not normal
my normal
has turned out to be.

A Conversation with Time

Has it been so long ago,
those nights,
nights when I danced for hours
to the loud beat
and the flashing lights,
glittering over the swaying bodies,
rich with the smell of smoke
and beer
and sweat
and lust
all wrapping around the music?

Time,
I tell you, Time,
the me in here
remembers just how it felt
to have the music
and the movement
take me places
beyond the taste of bourbon
and the flashing lights
and dreams of youth
and expectation.

I know you’ve heard it all before,
Time,
but still,
I cling to the memory,
and as the river of my life passes on,
I'm still the girl
who could dance all night
lost in the music,
and even as I sit and knit
and watch the minutes tick into hours,
I can be there again with just a thought.

Call of the Waters

I lay here on my bed,
heavy with gravity
and the dregs of winter,
and dream of floating on warm water
green and diamond sparkled in the afternoon,
and the cry of seagulls
and the smell of salt.

The years have passed,
but I remember how it called to me
and how it felt to wade in it,
and what it was like,
to just sit on the shore,
watching the pelicans at sunrise.

Sitting up,
I look out the window at mountains
and consider how it feels to be up in the heights,
surrounded by the silence and wind,
sunlight in the meadows,
the murmur of the trees –
a good place,
yet I know
that mountains do not have all the answers,
and at last,
even they will wash down
into the green depths
of Mother Ocean.

It is powerful,
the call of the waters –
if even the mountains cannot resist,
how can I?

Riverside Invitation

I toss a pebble into water,
and watch the ripples
beneath a lead gray sky
and lift my head up,
filled with a nameless yearning.

O wind
filled the the touch of change,
why do you bring me here,
stir my longing
and leave me
watching the leaves swirl
and the geese fly,
calling me to follow,
but I am too heavy,
too earthbound to follow.

Ah, the fae ways
of weather and wind,
whispering of things beyond my understanding,
eldritch and powerful,
just outside of my grasp -
old magic, that,
bound to rock and wind and water
and that place where the land meets the sky,
how it washes over me,
asking me to follow.
I sigh,
frustrated at my heaviness,
and watch the ducks set their wings,
landing in the river,
and wish for the sun.

Watching the Water

How high the water flows -
how swift the current,
I watch a duck float by
riding the torrent.
Spring melt is here
the mountains shed their snow
I stand beside the stream
and watch the water flow.

How blue the sky looks now
above the trees.
I watch a robin fly
and feel the breeze.
Beyond the riverbank
the people come and go.
I stand beside the stream
and watch the water flow.

Bound to the shade am I,
not to warm sunlight.
I watch the waterbirds
drift slowly out of sight.
My eyes may see the spring,
my spirit walks in snow.
I stand beside the stream
and watch the water flow.

Beneath the Stars

I stand beneath the stars,
spinning, spinning
as I watch them
dance around Polaris,
then watch the moon rise,
shyly at first
as she peeks over the mountains,
then dashes up into the sky.


How I personified her once,
the moon,
Artemis of the bow
drenched in pale white light
her hounds yapping at her feet,
and wondered how the Norse
ever saw her as a man,
even as I dreamed of space flight
and watched the rockets blast off
to circle round her,
pick up her rocks
and carry onward
our dreams of the future.

Ah, such dreams -
I thought by now
I would be walking beneath that cold white surface,
in a city built by our hopes
and dreams of the future
waving farewell to children
ready to colonize Mars
and their own dreams
as my tomorrows moved into today
and theirs were just beginning.

Funny how dreams
and reality
don't necessarily meet up,
but still I watch her
and the stars
spin round and round
and the dreams spin round and round
as I think of how tomorrow
becomes today,
and today becomes history,
and hope ever dawns on the horizon.

Here by the Waters

Here by the waters,
here by the flowing waters,
here the pale green arms
of willow wakened by spring
entwine me, binding my heart.

The waters flow on,
never ceasing their singing.
A single leaf lands,
turns once, drifting away
on the clear, sunlit surface.

The withies hold fast,
willow, tree of remembrance,
rooting in my thoughts
the memories, the pain
binding me in those yesterdays.

Let me be a leaf
slipping into tomorrow
drifting in sunlight
down the clear rushing water,
not the unmovable tree.