once awhile away

i'm learning though i'm nowhere yet
& finding breathing isn't the incurring of debt
it's just a journey in & out of foreign skies
where motion is a drug higher than a lust for a guise

i'm learning though i'm starting late—
that i can purchase & own my own slate
i remember the bars & conclusions got & foregone
now i pray promises that i won't be puppet or pawn

i'm learning though i'll make mistakes—
it's less about which fork or path that any takes
as what kind of breathing & seeing is got on the way
& learning too that all things near were once awhile away

almost & someday

three things all at once — a rising like a tide
a surveying of a mind, the limits — how far & wide
it's new & alien: the walking & breathing outside
the fear is all of mine — to put where i decide

a love & the freedom of feeling it
void of the clinging on shame & regret
just a longing to find a place i won't quit
where my mind is my own & i don't owe a debt

mistakes not yet made & a life not yet led
the feeling of faith over dread
it's so close, fingers almost close 'round a small thread

soon, almost, someday
tomorrow, next week — just not today
but i believe on what could be
& i can wait & trust that day i'll see

of these brambles & thorns

these bonds are so fiercly held
'til baked bitter & tart:
all that's poured in
must run again out.

no sins can scar
'til you conceal what they are.

from the ways' parting
are many hearts felled
& you & i know that an echo remains
of what always was there.

of these brambles & thorns,
some must be born
'fore you can see a way through.

it's no ball or chain—
just the burden you feign.
it isn't a cell; it isn't a poison.
this place you're fading in
is an unbarred prison.

i beg you; i dare you:
stop closing your eyes
& believing your lies.

the key that you crave
is only some strength to will out.

nothing gold can stay

nature's first green is gold

her hardest hue to hold

her early leaf's a flower;

but only so an hour.

then leaf subsides to leaf.

so Eden sank to grief,

so dawn goes down to day.

nothing gold can stay.

robert frost

hopeless

the heart wants what the heart wants
a pulling like a craving, it taunts
a shiny, gold trophy just beyond my reach
& i should know by now that it's a breach

we've crossed a line for the heart's craving
& i know now: we're beyond saving
we've tried everything, we can't stop the heart's raving

i can't wish the feeling away
& i can't walk away or astray
my heart's tethered to his so here we sway
we talked about why the feeling won't fade away

the why is so intangible & hard to see
but it won't stop & we can't flee

we're hopeless...
i can't bid him to stray
& he can't wish me away

the word i deny

nothing to change & nothing to say
'cause i've thought it all through all day
forward motion is the only path up ahead
anything else is just avoiding the dead

grieving & mourning, well that's all been done
i can hardly remember a life not undone

nothing to keep & nothing i know
'cause he left a long time ago
forward motion, i've got to keep pace
'else i'll just be wasting this space

grieving & mourning, well sometimes i forget
i forget that he's gone & then i regret

well there's nothing still here
& yes, i'm finally all i appear
it doesn't say much,
just that the cost was too high
& the only right word is the one i deny

reluctance

out through the fields and the woods

& over the walls i have wended;

i have climbed the hills of view

& i looked at the world, and descended;

i have come by the highway home,

& lo, it is ended.

the leaves are all dead on the ground,

save those that the oak is keeping

to ravel them one by one

& let them go scraping & creeping

out over the crusted snow,

when others are sleeping.

& the dead leaves lie huddled & still,

no longer blown hither & thither;

the last lone aster is gone;

the flowers of the witch hazel wither;

the heart is still aching to seek,

but the feet question "whither?"

ah, when to the heart of man

was it ever less than a treason

to go with the drift of things,

& bow & accept the end

of a love or a season?

robert frost

the weeping trees

it's loud & crowded in the silent, weeping trees
so lonesome here with just this cold, white wall
willow nigh, she whispers a capricious,taunting lullaby
her syllables taint eternity

i pull on my shoulders an overcast & mourning breeze
me & my bruised, black cloud running toward the angry bees
step-stones, wet-stones, will you catch me when i crawl—
down on grazed knees, bleeding from an inner brawl?

sting me, bate me, bite & take me
just promise you'll hold me when we flee
hate me, but don't let me be—
all by myself inside a barren sea

the lullaby just growing, rising red & wry
there's no will left so i just sigh
discontent, she's spreading like a gangrene breeze
& who can say what was before the weeping trees?