Allow

The voice is soft,

whispering:

‘if you want to be

happy, gaze up to skies

where seahorses float
and abide, go to the park
near a lake where your mother
loved gathering, sit on top 

of a picnic table next
to your friend with short hair,

or look out the living

room window away

from this i-phone

and thrill as one crow

soars suddenly towards

you through free open air.

I promise you dear friends,

breathe elemental earth,

be taken by her creatures,

allow wonder and tenderness
time to find home in your body,

and your unending thirst,
I vow, shall be slaked.’

         After Snow

Memories avalanche down

Steep slopes of his mind….

Crashing and seeping

Through once sturdy stones

Now bruised blue, as walls

Of protection built rock by rock

For decades collapse like a mosaic

Of bones whose mortar dissolves

Under mountains of betrayal,

Many wrenching good-byes.

A small boy stands at a crevasse,

He’s numb and alone under

Blankets of ice, overwhelmed

By what cannot be said

Nor known in his world

Of mute sirens--this unrelenting

Monster of snow as he waits

For someone to find him half-frozen

Near death under piled debris and

Reach down through this chaos,

Link hands, and with sure grip,

Help him return to an opening
That leads homeward to life,

To roses, laughter, a warming

Fire up at the surface.