Riding on a sea of dreams,
reality ready to burst, at its seams.
Bending the world to our minds,
discovering new places, species, and kinds.

Riding on a sea of waves,
a seagull that screeches, squawks, and raves.
Dolphins that together jump and play,
While whales moan and groan all the long day.

Riding on a sea of sand,
dividing the world between water and land.
Creatures scuttering 'cross the small white grains,
while sea lions bask with their non-existent manes.

Stand there, dear girl;
Patience doth pay.
Thine eyes will lay,
Choice of twirl.

Ogling softly,
Smile, fair maid!
Thine eyes hath laid,
Thy gaze on he.

All goes well,
A smile will greet,
Two will meet,
Thy hands will dwell.

Apace, dear love;
Claim thy place.
The dancing lace,
Awaits your glove .

Music takes flight;
Soles doth beat.
Hands who meet,
Light the night.

Take her fast!
Lead her down!
Take the bound!
The round is last.

Rearview, upturn
green eyes, nose speckled
with sun kisses
planted chaste and
unassuming
Pores speak
of days
and months
and years
taffy weeks
in which you were
seldom slathered with white
seldom smoothed
with the sage-painted
thumb
of a mother who cared
Say that you
ran outside, spent your days
untamed, untethered
untended
That from May through September
live vanilla-flavored
memories
hands and fingers sticky
and sweet
dawn to dusk spent

She was the first voice I heard
And the first smile I’d seen
Hers were the first arms I felt
And the first family I’d been in

She has this way to make me
All the more than I could be

It was she

Who taught me the way

It was she

Who folded my hands to pray

To love and to cherish
The world God made,
And to smile to the sky

Every day

If I had words like an angel’s
To describe her hugs to you
Then perhaps it’d encircle
The love of a mom in truth

In the east, gold sunbeams rise;
In the west, they fade away.
Hues of magic roam the skies
At break of morn, at death of day.

For such it is in life so full
Of thorns and roses, each in turn
Brings beauty to a hungry soul
If one has eyes to seek and learn.

July 2017

Anemoia.

My lipstick stains the rim of my paper coffee cup. Bubble-gum-pink.

It's a normal day of writing, except that my heart feels full of fire and wholeness. I am thinking about a career in a hospital. I want to be closer to my ex. Writing pulls me into the past, makes me remember his heart, full of brimstone and goosedown. I can write as well as The Bananafish, I think. I can be another Salinger.

Maybe not.

Recently, on a day of pain -- either of writing or love -- my friend Daniel wrote to me,

I see a void over which colors loom

Waiting to embrace in the place of gray

Our children are lost inside of this gloom

While parents are kneeling to weep and pray



We hail them on with exuberant cheer

And muster courage, their hearts to carry

While standing by, they see their end is near

And they only live in hopes to bury



Once they’re gone we suddenly wonder why

With such deep dread they began every day

And looked up never into the bright sky

Wishing only to die and fall away



I might have been a great physicist, had I been given a brain that didn’t commence automatic emergency shutdown procedures at the first sign of anything more complex than simple multiplication.
As it is, my fate has limited me to having an enormous respect for the work that physicists do, and a passionate fascination with their field of study. Hence, I do have a rudimentary understanding of physics in a rather instinctual way, even though I couldn’t explain the mathematical technicalities if my life depended on it.

It was a strange sensation when the plane dropped back down through the clouds and I found myself staring down at Chicago through a torrential rain. It was such a shock when only seconds before I had been staring so raptly at the realization of my childhood imaginings, and I realized that this must be what it felt like to come back from Narnia.

Chapter 9 Last Bit of Advice
The night was so beautiful, the most beautiful I had ever seen. The stars were sparkling, and the silver moon beamed and smiled down on me. I purposely decided to ignore the dark, foreboding clouds that were growing on the horizon. It would be at least a few hours, or a few days before they overshadowed my home. By that time, I will be long gone…away with Peter.