Restoration

The waiting weaves through morning traffic, ramps
and bridges crowded with the rush, the piles
of steel and tires, hours, tunnels full,

congested sloping highway paths. I turn
and say I'm sorry, too abruptly. I
can't stand the silence anymore. I say

I never meant to hurt you. Soon you will
remind me of my tone, but now your strength
is all in your refusal. I’m bereft. It holds

you up, away. I will. Your smoothness lost,
from slack to sand. Remember when our feet
hung over planks of wood, the dock beneath

the green and gray pond water, clouded with
our shadows, thick, the fall of darkness, rise
of light. Our morning fight was nothing; just

a pocket of rare stolen air. There was
a moment there. Cicadas sing above
your pond — surround me here, foretold, now gone.

=========================================

Shadows of Season

Summer covers branches and shoulders, climbing
paths of pine and distance. Along the water
stands a lighthouse tower, a beam for sailors,
coastal, surrounded.

Autumn mixes red with yellow September.
Marsh, exhausted, threshing and restless, begging
time for light. It longingly reaches skyward,
lifted, receiving.

Winter frozen, colorless quartz of crystal,
trains delay, the stripping of branches, stunning,
evening turns on, cardigan draped on shoulders
resting in darkness.

Pearls along the neck on a ribbon hanging,
lightness, loss as springing away and falling.
Sit here. Make amends in that quiet corner.
Rising, you tell me.