Protecting the beauty

Protecting the beauty

Not wanting to mourn loss

Urban renewal plans

The bare wood without gloss

Pulling the clouds back or

Pushing back ocean waves

Look again and see it

Moments dirging to graves

Looking back letting go

Looking back letting go

Shoes worn in young mistakes

Permanent report cards

Are now private keepsakes

Repealing perfection 

Raised with this standard set

And failure to be so

The leeches will blood let

Taking back the shaking

Taking back the shaking

Promises formed in haste

Writing on white clouds smudge 

A storm warning foretaste 

Words fall into puddles

And sink instead of float

Fishing expedition 

On the hook what was wrote

Spinal meningitis

Spinal meningitis 

This was my beginning 

The start of hearing loss

A loose underpinning 

Never able to run

Counting steps in my walk

Not telling anyone

The totals should they talk

Wooden bridge in the wood

Wooden bridge in the wood

How I wanted to stop

To play Pooh sticks and watch

Our twigs race after drop

Our stares growing longer

Silence in slow motion

We could have but didn’t 

Though I had the notion

Just over eight minutes

Just over eight minutes

Sun’s perpetual wait

Why count the stars when some

Are already of late

In the great expansion 

Markers made get buried

The pulse and the moments

Only briefly married 

Is this for rainy days

Is this for rainy days

Or late summer twilight 

Must we wait for gray skies

Or quietness of night

Are we avoiding sun

And will we run for shade

Can we give too much and

Our colors start to fade