Portrait Of Winter

WINTER IN FAYETTE


November, we walked through corn

fields knotted with dry stalks and dust.
You threw flat stones
that sailed through the air
paper planes carried on wings
of sparrows in Autumn song.

You saved my poems on brown paper
for lyrics, pasted over blue
walls near Clemson's moon sketch.
A chime set of glass notes
twisted red in the afternoon breeze
reflecting music on my hands.

A spattering of snow
fell on your sagging barn,
skeleton of cardboard walls.
During winter the air has a song
of its own, you said, and called
out my name to hear it bounce
off hills, touch the moon

and fall back through naked trees
with sleeves of ice. In my hand
a sparrow's skull, paper thin.
I held it up, looked at the moon
through hollow sockets,
heard you calling my name.


FROM THE DISTANCE OF WINTER


No snow crusting Smith's pond
the sun's weary eye across the water
if I could touch its frozen lip
I'd feel the trees inside you
trembling before the first snow
wind tugging at the last, few leaves.

Once your house was thick with night
mattress pulled to the living room floor
your fingers on me like rain
swallowing the moon's perfect light

the distance I have wedged between us
highway markers falling past my rearview mirror
the road unfolds its dark fingers
from prayer, returning me home
to thoughts of you and the thin lines of love
found in the cusp of a broken moon.

Rock Bottom

 The well is deep, and beneath the murky water at the bottom lies the secret place where fear and sorrow hide. The reflection mirrored on the dark surface reminds you of the times your soul sank beneath the cloudy depths to rock bottom. This is the place that haunts your dreams; a world of seamless shadows tearing at the fabric you've carefully woven to mask what sleeps inside you. Many people have tried to fix you, but no one can throw you a rope and pull you out of the hollow darkness.

 Look closely at these eyes, the curve of the iris where it meets the black onyx pupil, and you will recognize the uneven path that once led to sorrow.; a defining moment that shapes who I have become. Years of tangled emotions that fell like bitter rain from these eyes, threatening to pull me under. The bite of a blade against pale wrists---the first bead of blood, a coward's way out.

 And yet, in all the darkness there is a light shaped from hope. My hands cupped the water and felt the coolness against my skin. The sun, glittering like a thousand stars against shards of glass, brought life. Listen closely, and you'll hear the song that heals the wounded soul.
 There is so much more to live for.