still here…

I lean back and examine the expanse of greyish sky,

a slightly dusty slate,

but adequate for my imaginings,

and lift a finger like a stylus

up against the darkest place

to write.

 

“I am still here”

is what I say to anyone

who cares to read it:

“I am still here

…”

 

Ha!

 

Perhaps that ellipsis is enough.

And?

But?

Yet?

All I can swear, in this brief moment

before the clouds scudding across

the heavy west

erase the scribing of my mind,

is that.

“I am still here…”

 

And in a moment longer even that

may not be truth enough

to notate against the heavens;

who knows?

 

There is a world of speculation,

of hope and despair,

of planted feet and foundations washed away,

of trees falling in the forest,

of elders casting off on floes

into the silver horizon alone,

caught between sunset and sunrise,

three dots

and a new year coming.

© RCGA 2018

A Happy New Year to everyone… a good passage from one cycle to the next.

Mountain Man

Across a landscape of cotton threads,

hills and valleys draped in the half-light,

I watch your chest in breathing motion:

rising,

falling,

steady and constant,

the resting bronze breast of a sated dragon

curled at the base of his mountain.

© RCGA 2018

Dolls

Somewhere in a poorly lit corner of my mind

I was sitting quietly, playing with the dolls

of my imagination

with my back to the world

because I had learned

most thought my dolls and my play

were strange

sometimes repellent

 

and in my heart

I never wanted

to feel that recoil

again

 

Then it happened that the moon

sent a beam across the bare floor

illuminating a doorway

where you stood

your hands in your pockets

waiting for me to see you

 

waiting for me to

ask you to play

 

with a plea in your eyes that even I could see

with my chin to my chest

and my face turned away

 

So I asked you

if you would like

to sit with me a while

and look at my dolls

if you would like to know

the words they whisper to each other

and the games they play

amongst themselves

there in the dark

with only me

as witness

 

and you pulled your hands

from your pockets

you pulled your hands from your pockets

 

and you had a doll

of your own

 

©RCGA 2018