When the answers don’t come

When the answers don’t come

But mornings still arrive

We are left with guesses

Or rational derive

So many hearts breaking

Questions waiting for why

Asking circumference 

And accepting its pi

The stars are not clinging

The stars are not clinging

And I cannot take root

They spin in the darkness

As I slip on my boot

At the end of rainbows 

There’s not a pot of gold

Ponce de Leon’s search

Is a myth we’ve been told

At the height of their bloom

At the height of their bloom

We only reminisce

Not a returning moon

Or garnered precipice 

Moments turned marker a

Post on passing prairie

Tangible timelessness 

Living statuary

Cause of death: traffic light

Cause of death: traffic light

At the intersection

Of no humanity

And police protection 

George Floyd and now Nichols

Crying for their mothers

One beaten to death and

The other one smothers

Such the extravagance

Such the extravagance 

Not bauble or trinket

The fullest Hope chest for

Which no storm can sink it

In many yesterdays

And here beside me now

Talking of tomorrows

And all our days to plow

An annihilation

An annihilation

A massacre of me

No duct tape but silence

From the earliest be

Falling from graces to

Land on a beach blanket

Absorbing the sunshine

And singing Life’s banquet 

In a bright blue knit cap

In a bright blue knit cap

With your eyes looking down

Limping up the street as

Drivers drive into town

Perhaps an appointment 

Or visiting a friend 

Has you out in winter

With sidewalks to contend

Further on, further out

Further on, further out

Our lovely tree is gone

The bleeding hearts that bloomed

Are all replaced with lawn

Derivative owners

All of them expressing

New sets of taste and time

Regress or progressing

Find me near the fossils

Find me near the fossils

Where my loved ones are near

Find the petrified wood

The log and not veneer

Taken from some early

Sinking ship of Exist

Collecting sediment 

The preservationist 

Knowing very little

Knowing very little

Yet feeling very much

Surrounded by facts yet

It’s their meanings that touch

Antennae, vertebrae 

Volcanic eruption

Sensory, forthrightness

Pompeian disruption 

Tomorrows are the same

Tomorrows are the same

On this peaceful plateau 

Days construct and collapse 

Off to fossil they go

With moments of mountain

And minutes of valley

Trees have grown on the plain

Too many to tally

The pendulum swings right

The pendulum swings right

Radicals on the rise

Where is the empathy 

And compassionate eyes

Bonded with blind hatred

Buckle in, don’t back down 

They feel greatness because

They’re holy and not brown

There is greater sadness

There is greater sadness

Than cloudy days and rain

In beautiful sunshine

Against the moody grain

A juxtaposition 

The ole square peg, round hole

In the bleaching of days

Feeling darker than coal

In a sealed envelope

In a sealed envelope

I was ready to fight

Captured and contained by

Some kidnapper of might

Like a lightning bug held

In a pair of cupped hands

Lured there by design or 

Premeditated plans

Rain falling this evening

Rain falling this evening

Somehow it took me there

A day decades ago

A place addressed nowhere 

In a short-lived hard stare

My heart fell down a hole

In my gut I felt love

Why was winning your goal

With each new subtraction

With each new subtraction

An adjustment is made

In walking, in hearing

Compensating downgrade

Distances are shorter

More mementos to keep

The craving for future

Deeper thinking and sleep

Won’t you come and join me

Won’t you come and join me

Or please let me join you

Molecules in moments 

Us in one verse of U

On some unknown day the

Sun will set and take me

A debt to be paid for

Living explicitly 

Ambushed by great kindness

Ambushed by great kindness

Squarely in the crosshairs 

A sweeter surrender

Lion tamer unchairs 

I see I am desert

Living with steady parch

Their aqueduct attack

And their ask to have arch

Unable to liftoff

Unable to liftoff 

The sky a serene blue

The trouble within us

Heavy dreams overdue 

Too busy grazing fields

Many Springs come and gone

At the end of the day

Without strength and all yawn

The Art of acceptance

The Art of acceptance 

Impossibilities 

The great unknowns or just

Plain ambiguities 

The failures created

Poor designs by default

Accepting the outcomes

Open shelves and not vault

We are but small spaces

We are but small spaces

In smaller bits of time

Threading our touches in

Search of you are and I’m 

The beauty of grace in

An aerie looking west

We are centered and strong

In our creative nest

Looking out and across

Looking out and across

I feel your heart longing

To swell in a lull and 

Hum in lieu of songing 

Where the gentle souls go

Thriving in living grace

On a level landscape

And meandering pace

A strand of clouds broken

A strand of clouds broken

A loose pearl in the sky

Inner hope exhales and

Let’s out a winded sigh

Waiting for a handshake 

That promotes open sky

Not a fortune telling

Or some wink of the eye

Photos live in silence

Photos live in silence

From tragedies to smiles

Our younger hearts on stems

Before the passing whiles

Together and absence

The sewn and solo swatch

Much to track and lose and

Time never wears a watch

Are we in a capture

Are we in a capture

Is there truly a free

A before and after

And the present at be

A birth mark or tattoo

Celebrating unique

Or a pile of snowflakes 

That collects in the bleak

Making many mistakes

Making many mistakes

Living is not exact

Even dreams have their flaws

And strive to stay intact

I have mine and you yours

Trying to make life art

Oriole nest builders

The hanging tender heart

In this world of subtract

In this world of subtract

Where chaos multiplies

Judgments without jury

The self is compromised 

A greater universe

Outside of this planet

Turn into stone so they

Will take you for granite

What does it matter now

What does it matter now

After the bubble burst

We are falling through clouds

Does it matter who’s first

In a pile of puddle

I am separating drops

I struggle to survive

By becoming sundrops

Futures out of favor

Futures out of favor

Falling to the wayside

Foggy out of focus

Avenues to decide

Personal perspective

Choices chasing the brain

But oh to have choices

Unlike battled Ukraine

All bound to brevity

All bound to brevity

Granular to hillsides

Smaller divided dust

Under umbrella skies

Smiles beaming and wider

Than internal wonder

Marvel in the moments

Lightning flash or thunder 

Sending a beginning

Sending a beginning 

First on paper airplanes

Folded notes then letters

And then all out campaigns

Next the paperback books

Followed by hardcovers

But first, a beginning

The cusp of discovers

We have travelled this far

We have travelled this far

Walnut shell and wide plain

Sparks and constellations

Freedom of I and stain

Seeing a near future

Inseparable past

Each of us going first

And neither of us last

Too quick and too allow

Too quick and too allow

With a consumer’s nod

Like hand cupping water

Or the vast earth we trod

Extinction grows silent

It crawls as we sprawl ‘til

One last mating call calls

Unanswered and then nil