Comes a Time

I have quaked before danger
And survived.
Each trembling moment
Fashioned in my breast
A fierceness
A resolve
That is untaught.

Comes a time
When danger darkens
My sill.
I greet it
As an old friend.

I know the bitter root
The sulfur
The tang
And heartbreak
Of fear.
I steep it as tea
Strong
Black and unsweetened.
By simple grit
I drink its dregs
Without shying.

Comes a time
A man laces his boots
And walks to face his enemy
In open country.

Comes a time
Going out
Doesn’t mean
Coming back.

But it’s the going out
That makes the man.

Waiting on the Rain

Waiting on the Rain

I’ve been always waiting on the rain.
Clouds thicken
The air grows heavy
Sparking a neural response in my body.

My chest aches
And pain radiates like solar flares
In concussive ripples.
Rain is the detonator
And I await the inevitable sear.

Nobody really knows.
They think me drunk
When I stagger
Like one under a kinder influence.
They think me addled
When my conversation halts on words
Like clothes caught on briars.
They think me profane
When I damn this curse.
They think me poor
When I shrivel within what shell I’ve left.

I await the rain
Whose suffering drenches me
Like an outcast.

But I have always believed it better
To meet heartache head on
As one accustomed to pain
And equal to its misery.

Let go my hand for now.
I am going to greet the rain.

Empty Fire

Empty Fire

You offered no kindling
Yet I burned for you.
No oxygen
But my flame warmed you.

Nothing combustible
But my glowing illumined you.

Heat and light
You received of me
Though no sustenance was given.

My flame licked your sighs
Caressed your cries
But without fuel I was only

Empty Fire.

Seasons on a Birch Wall

Seasons on a Birch Wall

Twilight paints the western sky
With Venus overhead
Bleeds to night the inky dark
Then eastern skies rim red.

On rolling hills, I see a wall
Of birches, white and slender
Reaching high, through chilling air
Delicate and tender.

White birch stands fill these hills
Like brides, adorned for grooms.
They stretch limbs here, rise tall there
In cathedral mountain rooms.

Swaying, singing, waving arms
They dance through storm and breeze.
Hear them sing a soothing song
These graceful, snow-clad trees.

Hear the wren and robin call
From perches near the sun.
Below the bear, and elk patrol
The deer and otter run.

High above, birch branches weave
Their dappled sunlight spreads.
By night a leafy canopy
Will mark their woody beds.

Winter drapes in sheets of white
Like linen on a line.
Springtime wakes in mint green hues
Sweet as garden wine.

Summer sighs in leafy shade
Autumn in burnished golds.
Seasons on a birch wall turns
And wraps me in its folds.

I Remember Jackson

I remember Jackson

The bitter
Long goodbye
That look
In your eye
When you
Promised what was
Beyond your power
To give.

How could you love me
Yet betray me
As easily
As a butcher
Dispatches a calf?

I hardly expected a
Judas kiss
To taste of salt and lime.

I remember Jackson.

The heat on my shoulders
Grit under my boots
Sweat streaming my eyes
The dull ache
Beneath my sternum
The way you turned your face from me
When I drove the question into you
The way a man drives a fence post
Into clay
Into your eyes, asking
“Did you?”

It took time to hate you.

But it began
There.
The ignition sparked the fury
There.

Oh, yes…
I remember Jackson.