Long distance is
Reaching
To touch your face
Then realizing
That my fingertips can only
Brush
The screen.
Long distance is
Rubbing my thumb
Along the back of my
Own hand
Because it’s
Empty
Without your hand to hold.
Long distance is
Looking for your face
Every time I’m in a crowd.
It’s looking up
With a smile, to share
A joke, or trade
Glances
But you’re not there to
Catch
My eye.
Long distance is
Knowing I belong with you

Home sweet home is just down the road
Just a skip and a hop
Or a stones throw away
Where the chickadees sing
And the roadrunners run free
And the children shout gleefully at play
This road that I'm on can often feel long
And it's spaces feel cold and gray
But honestly
There's no place for me
No neighborhood I'd rather stay
Because for better or worse this house I'll not curse
And this family I'll claim with pride
As I walk down this road so long with stride bold
And thank God for this place I call home

We lived in California until that summer, from down south. We didn’t want to move. Least ways, Mammie and Mama and Papa were reluctant. We kids were as excited as you would be if you heard the news you were going to ‘paradise’, where the rain fell, where there was no drought, and where we would have a place of our own—with air conditioning for summer, and heaters for the winter.

As I look around the room
A pleasing scene now greets my eyes:
A family is sitting ‘round
And pleasant warmth within them lies.

The youngest boy, his math in hand,
Is trying to work a complication;
Yet, he works without frustration,
In his eyes shines fascination.

Besides his son, the father sits
To give whatever help he needs,
Thus showing love borne for his boy
And for the family that he leads.

Travels
I grew up a nomad, wondering as I went,
With backpack over shoulder and shoes well spent.
I've seen Mesopotamian graveyards where dust fell from the Ishango Bone,
And trudged Mediterranean shores where Nap found the Rosetta Stone.

There's nothing like old Stonehenge at the midwinter heirophany,
Or late noons at Giza, shadows long like Modiglianis.
The snowflakes carved in Moscow are each a precious little fractal.
Who's tasted cacao where Aztecs toasted their own Quetzocoatl?

How can I tell them about the cold?
Here, such a penchant for rain
we have,
and such an unhealthy love of snow
we have,
We have hopes
made of steel and icicles.

And it’s strange—

Hey, here’s something cold and gray:
night falling, snow falling, eyes falling
asleep,
eyelids like a sagging roof,
and me like a crooked bend
in the highway.

And it’s strange—
But don’t you think it’s strange?

Oh, don’t wake me
from the cold and the snow and the rain.

a sepia-tone cyclone
rolled over distant, thrashing fields
I went outside in black and white
just to know how the wind would feel.

glass gleamed, light seemed
weak for the time of year
nobody looked as trees shook
and the cyclone spun ever near.

your shining eyes, the stormy skies
boxed in on a colorless screen
roads stretching out just turn back around
and around in the sepia dream.

you called my name, the storm raged
I was still and watched it near

I wrote this about a year and a half ago, and pulled it out a while ago, trying to find something to post on AP. I realized I like it a lot more than I thought  I did. I don't really care for the title - any other ideas?
I have a few more things to post on AP before it closes - I have some more of Nikolai, perhaps a ballad, and the opening of a story I'm writing with Anna.
I do have a Facebook, message me if you'd like to add me and I'll search for you.

a place that
I swear
will never be equaled
in beauty or prayer

landmarks
a road
more than a path
it leads to my home

it bends and turns
up and down
more than usual
it has no bounds

the swaying grass
around the curve
whispers my heart
and how it burns

the lakes soft surface
pours and flows
the suns kiss upon its back
all aglow

the farm house
it's roof of tin
the fence and stone
surrounding it