Birdsong

Sweet mute bird.
The cold season
Stays your tongue
And dampens
The fluttering
In your chest.
Yet you greet each day
With anticipation —
Awaiting
That first performance.

Paper Labor

On incarnadine sheets
He paints wishes and hopes
Black-faced characters
That curl and lope
Through a vast landscape
That stretches on and on
He fastens a paper steed to ride upon
For horizons of dreams
Horizons of songs
An artisan labors
Faithful and long

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Proposal

If I gave you a thimble, would you give me a needle?
And if I hummed you a tune, would you sing me a song?
On a summer day, in the shade of your presence
I bask in the coolness of your touch
And point our clasped hands toward the sky, to ask:
Now here is our road, would you journey with me forever?

Alpine Song

The shepherd tumbles his ditty
Into wide open arms of air
His oblivious charges gorge on long grass
Bleating in familiar accompaniment

Lifetime Labor

Those birds that chirrup a sweet song
Perhaps they were born with gifts
But the Mockingbird learns tune by tune
Listening to the beauty of others
Note by note he copies and twists
Until his hard work yields a repertoire
As brilliant as the colors of autumn

Infatuation

If spring follows winter
Then your eyes are the height of summer
And your lips only promise song.
Even your barbs are tender and blunted.
In anger, I still find the vulnerable shaking
Of a compassionate, easily-bruised heart
Which I once wrapped myself in on a cold, lonesome night.

Dawn

Overhead, the sky
Slowly, gold tones permeate
A wren pipes his song