“Her hand was writing before he was writing, then her hand was writing when he was writing and he was writing what she was writing. And his hand was hers. But hers was not his. Then his hand was writing, and her hand was writing, then hers was not, and his was not.”
“She didn’t look to see if he was looking to see if she was looking so he couldn’t see that she was looking. Time passed until she looked to see if he was looking to see if she was looking or just looking.”
“Too many words”
Oh Lizzy,
too many words and too much motion
to describe the branch’s sway
and the afternoon of your eyes!
Buzz, hum, and flutter are slower words.
City whisper heard from the hills,
and voices’ splash crossing the canyon.
Seep in, stillness,
settle the swell of the sea!
Too many words, too much motion
to feel the feel of the earth,
its grass beneath the hooves,
its spray upon the cheek.
With so little wisdom,
with circles and struggles and haste,
how can I hope to catch the ripple
of your breath on the glass of my soul?
“The moon found you”
Caught in the discarded straw
on the floor of the loft,
the broken rays reached toward you.
Like timid fingers they touched lightly,
then relaxed embracing your ankles.
Slowly, like a child entering water,
you were immersed in the light.
It moved like a gentle river
illuminating your cool flesh,
it flowed to the eddy of your knees
and grew in two rich currents
to meet at the top of your thighs.
Pausing, rising and falling with your breath,
tender waves rolled to your neck,
caressing your forelegs and breast.
As the light reached your eyes
I feared it might wake you,
so I blocked it with my hoof
and let you go on sleeping.
“He wondered what she wondered and if she wondered what he wondered when she had time to wonder. But he couldn’t wonder when he had to do what he had to do, or she had to do what she had to do, but when he didn’t, and she didn’t, they did wonder.”
“A lesson in beauty”
Because the flowers hide patiently
under the cool blanket of autumn,
because the spring comes quietly
with the sound of melting snow,
because the breeze touches softly
with the fresh fragrance of summer,
I will have to learn to see,
to listen and to feel,
if I am to find you.
“I cannot offer”
The hills do not know me
and the waves erase my name,
I cannot offer the gifts of the earth.
I cannot offer the broad mountain and wild rose,
the moody sky and its quarreling clouds.
My hooves are frightened,
they fall on the rocky path,
and they tear on the virgin thorns.
Because its waters do not call me,
I cannot offer the gifts of the earth.
But you sprang from the soil.
You awoke in the blue day
that echoed in the trees,
opened your arms, and embraced the dawn.
Your voice flew from branch to branch,
and your happy hooves played,
laughing with the stream.
The wind whispered secrets of the stone,
and the sun sketched your soul
with stretching shadows.
I cannot offer the earth,
so I wait the night in silence
to admire your midnight crown.
“With two hooves”
With two hooves and a full heart
I have fashioned a poem.
It was born of a fragrant branch
cut from the top of a white mountain.
With a delicate blade I shaped it,
refined its roughness,
I smoothed, sanded, and stroked it
until it had the softness of your snout.
With a dark varnish
I released the blood in its veins.
It was born as you were, it is yours.
I traveled the winds of salt,
where the waves ache
and the rivers meet and mix.
At a silver lake I listened.
I crossed the seasons,
and found in the fountains of spring
the voice that knows your name.
With earth on my hooves,
I bring this poem
to the silent place where you keep
the secrets of your heart.
“Your eyes”
The shades of sky
in the seasons
are not so numerous
as the shades of your eyes.
With dawn’s first glow
they opened,
extracting light
and drinking color,
singing,
with the play and splash
of the stream.
Hills, feathers, and branches
were the instruments
of their song,
and they went reading
the notes of the day,
reading its words,
(reading these words),
and casting their image
in the reflecting eyes
of another.
They continued,
sharing their illuminated
give and take,
until twilight released its rivers,
and your eyes,
like the tip of an alpine peak
caught the last sparks
of fleeting fire.
Through electric shadows
they carried their light,
until evening closed
and they opened anew,
stars,
in the night of your dreams.
“Your name”
The world was still new,
uncertain shapes and sounds,
when first
you heard your name.
“Lizzy” could have been an apple,
or a butterfly, or a sunset in spring,
but its syllables
became a seed,
the sprout of your center.
Little by little
you grew comfortable
with the sound and the colors
in your name,
its wings sailed
from voice to voice,
crossing
the houses and streets and trees,
making its way
to the peak of a dream.
At the first competition
it seemed the chilly name of another.
It was not yet you,
its essence was untested,
so you went seeking,
searching in weary mirrors,
in questioning shadows,
in solitude,
until you found
its true voice singing
in the slow light of dedication.
It was then it lingered,
and stopped a Blurtso that passed,
thinking it was the echo of an apple,
or a butterfly, or spring.