The two brothers,
Mist and Fog.
Eerily suspended,
hover above
the barn.
It is not time as yet
for the birds
to unfluff,
nor for the rabbit
to squeeze
under the garden fence.
Your warmth wakes me.
Your fragrant skin
is close,
and patient.
A sleepy hand
wanders,
with cunning
and purpose,
where the welcome
singes its tiny hairs.
'Yes',
mumble lips,
drunken with slumber
and drooling with promise.
Cushions,
rumpled
by the wisdom
of the past,
starched
by last night's love
and yet ready
for much.
Pillows,
one idle,
lonely,
caressing for two,
and
cradling spirits.
Moulding.
Holding.
Current
exchanged
and rising
to unknown heights.

Mist and Fog,
peeking
around the rafters
of our entanglements,
floating, nodding,
curling the smallest ones
and
smoothing the wetstone.
Welcome, Dew!
Faintly,
the creek,
also untiring,
murmuring
and flowing
to the end of time.
For us.

Pain is simply part of life
Like boy meets girl and man has wife
But suffering is something else
Emotions put upon a shelf
And polished for another's gaze
Extending pain for many days.

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before,
How long ago I may not know:
But just when at that swallow's soar
Your neck turned so,
Some veil did fall---I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before?
And shall not thus time's eddying flight
Still with our lives our love restore
In death's despite,
And day and night yield one delight once more?

O nature I do not aspire
To be the highest in thy quire,
To be a meteor in the sky
Or a comet that may range on high,
Only a zephyr that may blow
Among the reeds by the river low.
Give me thy most privy place
Where to run my airy race.
In some withdrawn unpublic mead
Let me sigh upon a reed,
Or in the woods with leafy din
Whisper the still evening in,
For I had rather be thy child
And pupil in the forest wild
Than be the king of men elsewhere
And most sovereign slave of care
To have one moment of thy dawn
Than share the city's year forlorn
Some still work give me to do
Only be it near to you.

Dull water spirit -- and Protean god
Descended cloud fast anchored to the earth
That drawest too much air for shallow coasts
Thou ocean branch that flowest to the sun
Incense of earth, perfumed with flowers --
Spirit of lakes and rivers, seas and rills
Come to revisit now thy native scenes
Night thoughts of earth -- dream drapery
Dew cloth and fairy napkin
Thou wind-blown meadow of the air.

Wedding Poems