I Was A Child Unsure What It Meant To Be Grown

Shave my head And cover me in a Black robe With a large hood So I can hide In the darkness Of my presence

And look me in My shadow eyes My face all that You can see So you must know Me by the magic Of my essence

I have no body You can feel My fluidity In the night sky And cherish My full moons And my crescents

I would tilt the earth For snow drops and witch hazel For rare hints of color Bright against a white landscape

I would give up leaves For bare frosted branches I would banish the sun To see night in the afternoon

I would never swim again To skate across a frozen pond I would tear out July and August To have a calendar of Decembers

Give me a window that speaks That howls the names of blizzards I would tilt the earth To see cardinals shine in snow

Don't sit with me today It's not a day For togetherness

It is a day for uncertainty For distance For dissonance

Your absence is loud As if the air were screaming To me that you're gone

Kingdoms that we built Inside our neighboring, Rolling, hillside towns Still stand strong and Towering, but only in my Enchanted daydreams, the Night fell fast in yours

I search for meaning In places where there are Many conflicting meanings, Where there are too many words And all the words are in Different languages.

Still I try to define Emotions that are multiple Emotions, that are vast And endless, that expand And shrink, and exist In a world outside myself.

I traverse dreams That I create in my mind, Where people relate to me In ways they do not actually Relate to me, where we Are all who we need To be to each other, Where we are vague and I am Lost in the details.

The winter cardinals Have finished their work Of raising wobbly chicks Into fierce and steady Juveniles, ready to Graze the sky with the Tips of their wings And soar off gracefully Away on their own breeze A fresh, solo journey

The parents are not Left behind, they are Quietly content, free To fly wherever they please The male a radiant scarlet And she such prominent earth Tones, the blazing yellow Of their beaks like Flames flying by on the Biting morning winds

The serene songbirds Mated for life, they fly Side by side, sharing One current of frigid air Wings spread out together As they glide in sync With nothing more to be Done, they settle in their Empty nest and sleep freely And warmly with each other

In the empty orchard Among the crisp apples And softer pears, Brown and green, The apples red and yellow, Losing their grip On their branches In the hour before dark Where no bonfires burn A quiet that is alone, mine

The air is full of Ragweed and dying grass, The sweet scent of Fallen fruits sinking Into the bed of the earth, Feasts for wriggling worms Before the frost comes Early in the morning, I am here with the last Of the colors of trees

Sheep getting sleepy, Too sleepy to count them Their sounds replaced by The last croaking frogs, The lingering buzzing of Wings on insects, Before they hibernate In frozen lakes Before the sun falls Further behind the barn

A little nature once in a while To break the trend of Love and other inward feelings

Show me a canyon Not that one, not the grand one Show me a regular canyon With water still flowing through

Show me the red of its walls Like a prehistoric mural Of erosion and persistence

Nature moves on, you know This earth shrugs us off We destroy it and it destroys us Nature breaks us all down

The church bell chimes Eleven and I count One, two, three, and on And then after the last The soft cooing of an owl Plays above the forest Echoing across the sky As if to outplay the bell To claim this simple land For itself as it sings Every one of us to sleep