Sandy Sweep

From campsite A to campsite B
Hip high holding daddy's hand
She strolls uninterrupted
No time for tired even at two
The barbeque pit beckons.

Site 161!
Quincentennial families couples buddies
A hundred cars cycles SUV's
Added to the day lot

Sated but not with solitude
We choose the black Saab stroller
For camouflage on the tar
Poured on wildflowers for access
To that sandy sweep

Cowans Gap Campsite 161

You fed us, 161.
As the August sun
Collapsed revealing fireflies and the North Star
And a partially composed tent
Two barefoot campers plunged into your margins
For firewood

Now the sky fades to black
Now the leaves erupt with color
Cast from your twigs your bark your limbs
Tent set dinner hot
Stomachs warmed
Marshmallows roasted in your yield
Our eyes shut to your
Quiet
Fading embers

A Rabbit Runs Through It

A mystery green mound
Expands intensifies
Thinks it's the universe
Hides the inflorescent butterfly bush
Raspberry chocolate heuchera
Extend earth sky podlings
To the sky

You could collect moss
In the perpetual mist of the cracked
Standpipe
And I do
Just under the shadow of the giant astilbe
In and out Dusty Millers hostas
Offer islands of normal amid the exotic

Isee. You just perceive
That green shadow of the hydrangea
That gains a new fuchsia mint grey-pink
For each day of senescence
Below, a gap-toothes row of Lilies of the Valley
More begs than promises
"Wait 'til next year"

South By Southeast

Barefoot traveller in this
World of shoes sandals and rubber soles
Look left Thailand
A bit further India
Right, Vietnam
Turn the corner Italy
Italy??
We choose Thailand

Buddhist wine from Japan
Washes down mango satay
Lemongrass cashew salad
Noodles already drunken
Laugh their way boa-like
About vegetables that
Can't hold up

Our time of tourism flashes by
With the flash of heat
From 2-pepper appetizer
"We'll have to travel here again"
"We'll have to travel here again"
His hand linked to her chain-tight back
Hers, caressing his Philadelphia
Blossoms

Schuylkill Summer, 2009

Elephant ears nibbled from the Waterworks
To the picnic site at Kelly Drive and Wherever
Carrying basket wine and shoes
Ripples exit sculls on the Schuylkill
We taste the currents
The sound of the city
Overdubs even the coxswain's calls
We nod, giggle, and toss the blanket on the misty grass
You wave your hands
Coated with oil and powdered sugar
Like fingerpaint
The wine warms as I lick each finger clean

Leaving/Staying

Leap to the table
I cannot hear you
In breathing I am
Filled by you
I carry your favorite sofa
Down your old
Apartment steps
In Mt. Airy.

Your mom collects your
Brother in her arms
Says farewell to the
Only home you knew
Before you danced
Soundless
Into my arms
Into my lungs
Still in the city
A whisper shouted down
By fireflies

Crystalline Wisdom

Wisdom falling like icicles from a Japanese maple
You could freeze a sequoia with your will
Reaching through the past
You pick
A frozen twig
The morning light glistens
Diffracting into rainbows

Once, you celebrated your move to this complex
You saw thousands of crystals
Received wisdom
You saw a garden of crystals, reflecting
Wisdom of the world

How two years have changed you,
Ice Sculptor
Who sought to create a garden of refraction
All light and happiness of myriad images
Focused to the future
The pallid, lukewarm hopelessness
Of aging humanity
Thwarted you captured you
Transformed you in its own image
"Come let us make adam in our own image"
Image of the imageless
Focus lost
Crystals worn into facelessness