Momentary Suspension

The tenure of your steady gaze
Leaves me fumbling; uncertain
Caught within its lucent haze
It probes beneath the curtain
Of my transparent skin; I tremble
But not in fear or shame
But simply because now you know
How glad I am you came

I breathe, but very slightly
Lest I disrupt this trance
I touch, but soft and lightly
The shimmer of your glance
We stand apart like strangers
Rehearsing every breath
No sound marring this moment
But the trembling of the earth


J~

Verge

Clamorous moments push against my side
Tugging me from my yearning
Forcing me to see what’s in front of me
For there is no returning
To the crying shadow of faded chance
Or the blue meadow of yesterday’s dance

My tears for you wrap me in a pale, silk scarf
I run my mind over your form
While the wind screams and moans and wails
I am caught in the eye of the storm
I touch your mouth with dissolute sorrow
We will worry about tomorrow, tomorrow

Rain-drops slide into puddles of glass
Dawn creases the hem-line of day
As light splinters the cobalt grasp
Of a dark arm, stiff and gray
I know today is coming on fast
And I turn to you; on the verge of the past

Slow release is an agonizing eternity
As I sense you pulling away
The warmth of your whisper slipping from me
Into the vast yesterday
A stiff breeze rises with the sun
I reach for you; but the storm is gone

J~

Endless Change

Endless change, nearly imperceptible
But silently bold
I have depleted the joy of being invincible
I’m not quite old
But I yield a little of myself to change
When I must
For I cannot rearrange
The sequence of dust

Endless change, but I am unwilling to trade
Passionate longing
To be quietly patient and staid
Every morning
Change is as subtle as a falling mist
In the soft-dusk hour
It does no good, but still I resist
It’s resolute power

Janet~

Fingertips

The rain plays a muted song tonight
Gray fingertips pummeling out the light
As wind-tattered fragments of my day
Waver momentarily and then slip away

The silence is warm and easy with you
Thunder rolls in the distance, the lightning white-blue
Illuminates stark images, rigid and black
My finger-tips brush across your back

The night settles around us in a long, out-drawn sigh
Reaching the perimeters of the sky
Fingertips whisper, plead, implore
Waves gather somewhere on a forgotten shore

J~

Trying on my Longing

I wish you fell as smoothly from me
As the teardrop from my eye
But I cannot wipe away memories
With words like ‘we’ll write’ or ‘good-bye’

We pack things in boxes only to find
That somewhere along the way
They have left their importance behind
In a shroud of yesterday

Longing slips over my head, then my shoulders
Like a dark blue-velvet dress
Suddenly the night is broader and colder
I shiver beneath its caress

But I cannot touch in its aching mist
That thing I am longing for
I am not even sure what it is
Does it even exist anymore?

The fragrance of you is a wistful presence
It wraps me in a soft blue-gray
Tingeing the night with iridescence
My gown slowly falls away

J~

Today my son discovered that love hurts
As he watched two of his best buddies leave
For their new home almost 2000 miles away…

Tonight I held him as he cried himself to sleep,
My tears mingling with his…yes, love hurts…

Its strange, how we pack chapters of a life into boxes…
Signifying an end…
Then we unpack them…for a new beginning

Yesterday's Moments

Yesterday the moments we held spoke of years
Gleaming with possibilities
Tonight as I left you I shed quiet tears
Cancer is a cruel disease

Somewhere deep within my pulse hits rewind
In a slow-motion reverie
As yesterdays which are now decades behind
Are drawn from my memory

And for a moment I do not see
The toque on your once dark-haired head
The man in a bathrobe in front of me
Appears as a boy instead

Running in games on a summer front lawn
Where childhood seemed to last forever
And even though we heard your mother call
You stayed until the game was over

And I long to whisper in the still of the air
Oh, the game is not over tonight
But all I can do is whisper a prayer
That God gives you courage to fight

Yesterday the moments we held spoke of years
Tonight years are held in moments
We speak of our faith and not of fears
For in fear there is nothing but torment

Janet~

Of What I Have Learned

I have learned but a little
Yet this I know
Never hold on too tightly
For we must let go
And never decide
That you will cling
With all your might
To an earthly thing
For things are temporal
And will slip away
I’ve learned there is potential
For joy in each day
I've learned that wisdom
Is not found in books
And too often we judge
On the basis of looks
And I have learned
That true beauty lies
Where it cannot be spurned
With naked eyes
That forbidden pleasure
Lasts but a moment
And the flip-side of its measure
Is a silent torment
That there is no tear shed
Which will not dry
And not all tears are bled
From out of the eye
I have learned that
Sometimes we weep
In our heart of hearts
When the hurt is deep
That a broken heart hurts
But we will not die
And it is a gift of worth
To be able to cry
I’ve learned that for man
We can never do enough
If we serve the hand
That is not tempered by love
I’ve learned to love
But not to own
And two are better
Than being alone
I’ve learned just a little
In life's ebb and flow
And I’m somewhere in the middle
Of what I ought to know
I have learned
That I can cope
If God is my
True living Hope


J~

Glimpse of Paradise

This is no mental luxury
No, this is a feast for the eyes
As the Keeper of infinity
Sheds upon the skies
His art for all mankind to see
A glimpse of paradise


Janet~

Tonight the run was extended
Simply because of the spectacular sunset!
For awhile the clouds appeared to be
Like distant blue mountains…