Gossamer

For some of us, childhood only grants
a ghost of a chance, a gossamer
thread of truth and right in the midst
of the stony silent cave of our lives,
lined with dank walls dripping with empty
promises and forgotten dreams

In the cold and alone, leaning
against the hard walls that line
all we know of life, we must
ignore the dripping water, the formation
of the stalagmites. All movement
leads to more stagnance surrounding us.

We must close our eyes and hold
out our hands, feeling for the spiderweb
strand of hope, careful
neither to let it fall from our grasp,
nor to hold it too tightly, making
it snap, dropping the end

in the muck, losing, forever,the line
that spells freedom of the soul,
freedom from fear, freedom from
the desolation we see around us,
freedom from the isolation
that haunts us.

That single thread of truth holds
the promise of nights not lying
in stoic silence, afraid of the
boogeyman waiting to snatch
our dreams the second
they awaken

within our subconscious.  We must
hold that thread with brave tears
and trust that we will not always
feel alone
and not quite of this world.

Lihue

Father suffers
emotional dysentary (a full cup leaves
no room for others' fluids) Father's children pare
and cut themselves
unleavened people denied a warm stationary
place necessary
for a full rise.

Alone in Paradise, our baker beams at his
perfect loaves, thinks of Dalmations and Annapolis.
Lily white communion blueberry pancake wedding
band collection and three family
albums carelessly left stateside.

And here she comes on flight 2953
seeking redemption for a rocking of the hips, swallowing
peas whole with milk.  You can't
get there in the car you're driving.  Mister
Oblivious and his missionary
family.  You-kuh-lay-lee, Ooo-kuh-lay-lee,
What the hell, it's a fiddle.

He won't give you
what you want.  The Deacon
will never fall to his knees
begging absolution.
Nothing personal,
blood doesn't drip from a stone.

Chalk it up to a weekend for two
in Hawaii.  It beats anything else he gave us.

Growth

I remember a white dress with red satin trim
dirt caked under my fingernails, between my toes.
I was three, and you were explaining
to me why I couldn't plant an apple tree
in Florida.  I couldn't understand how a place
good for growing so many other trees
couldn't grow apples.  I dropped the core,
seeds and all, into the earth, in defiance of you,
and of nature.  I dropped it in a cold corner
near the front of the house, and sat above that spot
all summer, sucking ixora nectar
as I waited.
No apples grew out of the earth
that fall, but that core took me into the ground,
showing me the secret to growing things unseen.