ON DEMAND: THE COLLECTION

(Who overuses the words bright, dark and darling?  

I don't know.  )

 THREE POEMS ABOUT BABIES

Child of Destiny

Little girl, your face, your grace,

your complex attributes

are yet to amaze us. 

And still we know you are star sent 

and remarkable. 

Unknown and yet

Somehow, we know you. 

Darlin,’ we know you. 

For Aurora at Nice Months

So much from such pretty eyes –

looking out through eons, eras,

peeking through 

melodies to this fresh moment. 

Aurora sun adventurer, 

landed here on my knee, in my heart. 

Unafraid, beguiled, beguiling. 

Alaska girl.  Alaska dream.  A darling. 

            Little spirit traveler

What seas are you crossing on your way to us? 

Do you wander spiral galaxies as we await the day. 

Can you feel our eager hearts, 

the touch of loving hands? 

Leave the celestial music now, 

And come, little boy, home to us. 

PEOPLE AT THE EVENT

            Eli

Is there a color, could I guess

Or one note, one chord for you? 

Would I start in deep, dark tones of 

purple minor chords? 

Or bright, cheery notes 

to signify one more time? 

Always one more time.  

With feeling. 

Carl and the Clarinet

Such history to be found in that 

hot black stick of yours. 

Back to Benny Goodman 

and the big bands. 

And tonight you bring the 

bright cacophony to a new day

and breathe tomorrow’s

  unchained melodies. 

For Pete and Vickie

Wind moans through hollow trees 

and the night, still light, defies time. 

Then morning bird-song so reckless with hope, 

with improvisational abandon. 

And here you are with me, 

enduring, unsettling, 

exciting, mine.

For Denise

Make no mistake about it,

she has known trouble

but when you see her at dawn,

leaving prints in sand to gather,

flotsam, shells and bright coral,

you will notice only her hands,

generous and cool. 

And when she touches you,

the world changes.  

THE UNIVERSAL

Pleasure of Life

How to distill the pleasure of life,

And wear it like a perfume? 

A little from loving, some from the rose,

A little from nectar, a little from you.

The feel of a hot tub, 

the smell of baked bread,

Or when I’ve finished mending 

with needle and thread.

When the cop drives right passed me,

or the radio plays a song once my favorite

How once blind, now I see. 

The pleasure of knowing, my life is my own

Knowing you love me and 

how we have grown. 

Consider the Whirlwind

And then look at me,

one child of the universe 

alive with electric possibility. 

Consider the infinite you’ll see it in me:

a dancing diva bathed in pure light. 

Not quite the usual, no problem. 

Tame the hurricane 

then relax into the force. 

On Breathing

They say the Milky Way is not expanding. 

It pulses they say, as if they knew. 

What if it were breathing? 

Long yoga breaths, 

to mark millennia, time out of time. 

And when I open my window 

and gaze at the night sky,

I breathe and the sky breathes too.

Look at this. 

It is a tapestry of darks and brights. 

It moves, swirling, glowing, sounding –

a beauty that catches in your throat. 

Look closer and you’ll see it all –

every step, every miss-step, every fall. 

And when a new day beaks and

the rosy light of dawn spills over it –

every catastrophe, 

every tear 

Shapes the bright and makes it dance.