Bend of the Moon   Night beach - waves beat in iambic pentameter – wind sprays a rocky Sheepscot shore. The bend of the moon sheds its saffron light on distant islands. The eye of Jupiter peers over white pine hills. Beach roses belie burgundy skies – the jagged coast falls still.   And your infinite body – like perfume, fruit and salt combined, lies next to mine. My shirt spread taut on crystal sand – I move within your amorous hands wishing I could slow my heart or hold back time.

Kindred Spirits   Perhaps we crossed not long ago on lemon grass or autumn snow.   Perhaps we met ten years before near river’s sweep or ocean’s roar.   Could we have shared a life gone by that even death could not belie?   Or captured some familiar star, as bright as moon, yet twice as far?   Your mystery unfolds like tide, and yet, I ponder mystified.   I only know, through spark or time that we have touched, and somehow rhyme.

Tackle Box Passed down from father to eager son, a box of hooks and lures and line, a box whose weathered wood enshrines the light of mornings left undone. Unopened since your last escape, it holds the dreams of Aprils past, and laughter that went by too fast, as the breeze sketched ripples on the lake. Now with my son, I draw the strength and courage to continue on. Your life, though it was short in length, in loving, it was twice as long. This box cannot return you to this place, but lends your smile to your grandson’s face.

The Purple Rose Born of South American seed and hybrid tea; with pigment more than mauve or grape or blue – like the broken light of dusk against the sea; its petals fall, and with them all I knew of trust or love or truth, or what was meant to be. Before the bloom, I didn’t quite believe a rose could don the deepest shade of plum – I’ve seen them pink or red or in between; I’ve seen the wilting slope that they become. Amidst the clutter of ordinary things there is a force unwilling to impose; amidst a moment vexed with spectral void – against an ashen sky, the purple rose.