Just Thought You Should Know

When we say goodbye on the telephone,
I wait until I hear your phone click
before I hang up,
just so that I can have a few more silent moments
of knowing you're there.

The River and the Forrest

You feel so small
underneath the waterfall
when you hear the river call.
My river calls.

You call the trees your own
because the forrest is your home,
and you know you're not alone.
We're not alone.

We're not alone, here with each other.
We're not alone.
We have a Father who is here for us.
He made our love.

Lover of Mine

Lay your head close to my heart,
and I will bless my own lips
with the touch of your eyelids
as soft as a butterfly's whisper.

Let your eyes shine
always and never should a tear
fall onto your good-morning blush,
so that your perennial smile is as dry as it is warm,

as your arms heat my countenance
and your swelling chest below mine softens the realm of my existance
more so than new towels from the dryer,
and twice as comfortable as a branch of cotton.

We can escape to the land of stars apart from concrete
in the middle of the day,
for like our bond,
the sky's burning map is as present as it is invisible.

Let the blowing of the leaves
be our love song,
the deer-tracks through the tall grass our center isle,
and the wind our spirit guide,

and we can be joined with
the birds and the sky
looking with the eyes of the solar system
as our witnesses.

If

If they would listen
they would hear her pain.
They would know her sorrow.
They would cure it.

If they would look
they would see her beauty.
They would know her worth.
They would appreciate it.

If they would stop
they would taste her tears
they would feel her falling away
they would smell her sweat.

If they would listen
they would hear what she has to say.
They would help her grow to all she can be.
They would know that they have the blame,

but they just put more bricks
on her back,
tighten her leash
around the doorknob on the front door,
and whip her back to work,

and she works to drown out the tears.

Wondering...

Why is it that when I walk past
a flock of birds
they all take off unanimously
with that "whish"
that I adore
and then, as one entity,
land in the tree.
Why do they all go to the same tree?
How do they know where to land
before they take off?
Do they have assigned branches?
Why don't they run into each other?
It is for this reason,
as well as that rapturous sound of wings
that sends me running through parks of crows
screaming at the top of my lungs
just for the hell of it.

Carbon Monoxide

Cordelia Cherie was a brainless yellow canary who got the feeling of dying inside whenever she wasn't doing something.

For this reason, as well as the fact that canaries are, on the whole, very small and easily devoured, she never stopped moving. She had a very small wingspan, so she had to flap her wings very, very fast to keep herself flying, and she still couldn't keep up with, fly as high as, or escape from a lot of the other birds.

One morning, after waking from bloody, feline-colored dreams, she checked her feathers in the mirror and then flew straight out the window and into the day, stopping for none of it, but doing her best to make sure that everyone could hear her sing.

Everyone did hear her sing. She was so bright and sunny on the outside, and nobody seemed to notice how completly solidly black her eyes were, and how impossible they were to interpret. It was because of those things that she was caged and sold.

Eventually she was bought by a man who promised to take good care of her forever, because she was so beautiful and talented. So he took care of her and she sang from her pretty little guilded cage and chirped when he asked her to, and stopped singing when he asked her to, and he found all of her birdseed for her. She just ruffled her feathers and preened, for she couldn't think of anything else to do anymore, and loved it when the man came home and hated it when he left, because she didn't have anything else.

After a time of this, the man inevitably became subliminally bored with her, and her chirping began to make it very hard to watch t.v., so he donated her to a mining company. She was very bright in the dark of the mine shafts. Her death saved a few lives and destroyed a few minds, that pretty little, noisy little bird.

The Waves

I float along
resting here and there
sharing with many
trusting nobody.

I'm safe this way
but am I happy?
Could I ever stop doubting myself enough
to stop doubting how everyone feels about me?

Could I get rid of the thought
that nobody could love me
and think instead
about how I could love them?

The fastest way to learn to swim
is to jump off that high dive.

I almost think I'd risk drowning
for that refreshing, cushioned fall
into the enveloping waves of friendship.