A Time When…

pausing the light that frames
what edges the earth presents
carving misty daybreak with love

so that the sea whispers of you
bright colored fishes celebrate
your watchers captured stare

care provides some tender ray
caress the curves with warmth
to welcome surreptitious song

fragmented sky spreads its legs
swallows you in her expanse
leaving bated breath in wake

where worn and traveled roads
sway cypress windswept and rocky
fragrant shores you once knew well

how that now the memory collapses
one hundred and three seconds sew
slipping the salty air with time while

the remember landscapes call
breaking the silence wrap where
wonder sleeps the chill away

– Previously Published 2007

four corners meet in the nostalgic
lullabies sung now to sleepy children
places long ago well traveled reminding
the stones in your shoes white canvas
how red cliffs scrap the sky towers
tree cottonwoods, little brook
sliprock trails lead you into the heart
cliff dwelling and the kiva descending
desert cholla and sage contrast the emerald
crashing sand dreams that wind the coast
seal lions and sea birds romp shores
in childhood you played and picnic there
tall pines fill the spaces to open up
on glacier blue Paradise Ice Caves
blue lupines and red paintbrush flower
picking wild blueberries and eating them all
how the islands dot the bay calling you
to visit, cycle their course and walk
long paths that smell of bay laurel
hemlock leans the iced falls transformed
daily into sculptures of winter not far
from where the corn fields once stood
the lake now frozen holds its secrets
where once you lived places long ago traveled.