Between Two Points

I saw you once through trees,

light and shadows on your face,

the sounds of children nearby,

boats on the water. 

Distance calculated between the two. 

Long Walk, Bisecting...

 It can mean several things,
to exceed your grasp daily, 
mindful of barriers or not 
fully seeing what's on
either side of a line. 

Abandoned

Upon entrance, you stumble through to rust, 

and someone else's abandonment.

But you claim it as your own,

which it is,

until you leave.

Crossing Over

You crossed into that light,

surrounded by soundless water. 

Resting Place

Collapsed giants. 

Eyes fixed.

On no particular point. 

Pear Tree

The mistake Eve made

was not in accepting the apple,

but forgetting, 

when the serpent turned,

to also take the pear. 

What Grows Out of Fracture

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places.” 

~ Ernest Hemingway

Blacklit Jellyfist

Night's blind corner and,

ghosts fall downturned into a

child's faint closing hand. 

Keats, Severn, Nocturne - Helen Humphreys

"In that room where there was no writing and no reading, Severn sketched the dying man, in fact made some of the finest drawings of the poet when he was on his deathbed. Perhaps Severn's sketching was a comforting presence to Keats. Art, although no longer of urgent relevance to his world, would have been his familiar. 

Severn, afraid that he'd fall asleep one night and that Keats would wake to darkness and think that he had died, devised a system so that the poet would have continuous light. He fastened a piece of thread from the bottom of one candle to the wick of another, and in its guttering state the dying flame would ignite the thread and travel up it to ignite the wick of the next candle. 

It is said that John Keats awoke at the exact moment the flame was travelling up the thread from one candle to another, and that in his excitement at witnessing the spectacle, he woke Severn to tell him of the success of his invention. 

At the end, we are all far from home. We are far from home, and what we hope for is that someone will fashion us a light, so that we will not have to wake in darkness."

                                                   ~ Helen Humphreys, Nocturne

On The Subject of Gardens

Miracles and Horror

“It was a miracle; it was all a miracle: and one ought to have known, from the sufferings of saints, that miracles are horror.”
- Nadine Gordimer

Hemingway - A Moveable Feast

I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, 'Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.' So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there.

Hang Time

To leap headlong,

into the spaces between words.

On Longing

Crooked and spent, 

a wayward pull. 

The final imprint of light,

on the insides of eyelids,

before dark. 

To Combat Cold Weather, One Looks at Warmer Photos

La Jolla. 

The ocean's grab and draw.

Fine salt on the tongue.

Port Dalhousie in Winter

Eulogies - Binding The Worlds of Presence and Absence

Our lives suddenly lessened — augered out, never to be quite filled in again. And yet this resonance of the departed.

The Way of All Flesh

Do not be afraid you are dying

And the four great elements of your body are collapsing one into the other

It feels as if you are being crushed by mountains.

Vintage Book Covers - Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road

“It's a disease. Nobody thinks or feels or cares any more; nobody gets excited or believes in anything except their own comfortable little God damn mediocrity.”
― Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road

The Long Walk and James Jones

If I never meet you in this life, let me feel the lack. 

A glance from your eyes, then my life will be yours. 

~ James Jones, The Thin Red Line