Sweet crickets, the tune You’re playing tempts me to sleep. By your tune, I will drift off Better to a place dark and deep. The low moon and toads

Often conversation carries Us through the day For talking about things is Basic to an alliance Yet at other times, we survive

Rabat is a black pearl Of cellophanic rainbow Gazing upon waves that curl And lick a shore little known. Gibraltar is the dock

What love is this That spellbinds me And keeps me returning To read scripture? Older I will get

Love is many, Water is many And flows aplenty But Fire is one And consumes until gone All but purity.

Last night remains a scent Remembered at slow length— Drawn from the air, lingering abou… A secret kept under my breath. The union of your soft lips

Our Sun imprints heavy July Upon a crimson sunset. The first star I see in the west Brings with it a cobalt sigh...

When long days drag on me And my soul cries in the dark Then I speak my prayer in sleight And He slips it into my jar. Prithee – give it wings to fly up

Through a break in the trees Flows a tawny river Sanding the rock endlessly As a peerless carver. The jungle is not seen

I have nothing to offer Except this small heart of mine. You come with laughter. I have a past much maligned. You come with true stories

El Capitan– you are a joint Within the Sierra Nevadas Of punctuated granite - A sentinel of the ages. Sylvestris partition -

Let us drink in the sunshine From a cup of globe mallow As would one of palatine Privilege beside God’s throne. Here’s to another springtime.

A milky-eyed mourning dove Sat upon a tombstone – tacit – Inside the grounds of St. Francis To admire a cache betroved. A sentinel’s duty – it bears –

Music starts my little church And bids us goers “come forward” - Timid and cleansing at first - Bringing voices to one accord Then Chris’s voice waxing loud

Jesus stole him from me; A cleft of my heart went With my beloved to grand company. Shock distracted the void - Grief befriended melancholy