Remember

you rest
your head
on me

I sit
and hold you

and think
remember me
this way

please
remember me

always
this way

the one
who could save you

the one
who could hold you
and make almost any tears dry

the one with who you discovered wonders wide
in the world we created

the world I could never have had
without you
and these moments

and now as you grow
into your own ways

these moments where I make it into all you need me to be
grow more precious and scarce

tonight as my shoulder
once again becomes, at the moment you fade, soft as any pillow

I will miss this
I think
maybe the most of all

Grasp

memories
like
   craft glue

hold only
past
   so many tears

no resistance
   to the wet

as they peal off
back in the corners
   and all over

a new
dispassionate yet
irrational state
swells

colder
even here
   in June

skin coarser
and untouched

routine
unrelenting
and even less rewarding

go long enough
and everything will unravel
even my bones

my love
and the dust on my heart

memories
are just that
   a reminder

do you remember too?

are you just tired?

once powerful
now
   like I

everything one does
so many days now
just a drop in a great river
   that runs away

never adding up
to what I saw go in

memories
are just that
   a reminder

I want the rest
the love
the belonging
you

The earth
[that] I affect
in a gain at a time

but by exponential
reproduction
my kind
has the numbers
to turn molehills
into mountains

then fill them with goods
that 'll glow hair

and finish with a drink
from the water down stream

The earth
[that] I affect
in a ton at a time
a tooth
in the gears
one of many
and many

a cloud is forming
between me
and my sun

yet it won't even bring me rain
to wash in

At Winter's End

In the mud
I leave you

I hope
that you find your shell
a burden

at just
the right time

and that you
set out
to find
new roots

new meanings
new colors

new abundance

for now I leave
you

here
in the mud

something

I'd be smaller
if not for you

you gave to me
something

something
to work away from

something
to grow beyond

something
to avoid

Something
to use as a ladder
to find new footing

the world
is
always
trying
to better itself

even past missed
messed over
family disasters
and stumbled upbringings

I'd be smaller
if not for you

you gave to me
something

something
I never would have asked for

something
another parent would never have

something
I hope I didn't miss

something
I hope I took as an example

an example
to avoid

but a gift
still

life
is full

and never
taken

on watching children
learn about barn owls
(particularly, dissecting owl pellets, school is great)

owls
eat their
prey

in pieces
but
wholly

how
one does that
and gets a small skull

out
the other end

with a face
as serious
as theirs

i don't know

must be all the feathers
i lack

open

and
closed


fence

and
gate


mote

and
bridge


let

let me

in

let

let me

out

a dependable pendulum

self interest
is sometimes
when anger tainted
to be contrary

and thus self fulling
in your own betrayal