Reaching epic heights was never my hope; I always feared them more than I could climb. Then I thought if I took hold of your rope, I might scale peaks that evaded my prime. But I guess I’m not that good a student, nor brave mountaineer, hero or friend. While my intentions weren’t that imprudent, sometimes they’re hard to comprehend. Now we’re stuck on the side of this mountain, surrounded by these clouds and can’t see. No, looks like by anyone’s accountin’ the regret to reach the peak falls on me. So you can go finish your ascension; reaching epic heights is why you came here. If you wish, I’ll untie this rope for descension to my life of quiet failure and fear.
Imagination
Dreams Like the Tiniest Snowflakes
The tiniest of snowflakes have returned to the tableau framed by the window where I sit and stare at dreams of you. Etheral, gossamer, with a lifespan as small in my hand as the hopes speckling those dreams. How many winters have I sat here where imagination drove these dreams past my sight like the tiniest snowflakes I frame within this pane of vacant day, empty even of lies I tell myself? They’re coming faster now, soon enough clouding my view of the reality I’ll always be alone, and trying to hold onto the tiniest of dreams I wish were true.
Talking to You Through My Fingertips
My fingertips are tracing this spot and that just as they’ve done uncountable times before, but in this instance, for this instant, I’m touching them in a way neither my fingers nor these spaces have ever felt. Can you feel the soft abandon I’m bringing to this touch, not the teenaged hesitance, lest I make a mistake and lose the feeling altogether, nor the young man’s assertive staccato sureness that he’ll get away with it until you ask for subtext like a river flowing beneath the ice. No, this time my fingerprints are brushing softly on the coded conversation beneath them, I can sense their washboard burr upon the ridges rising from this spot and that. And now the feeling’s gone, turned cold and silent as this scatter of gravestones again. But above them, I see this instinctual invention, a forever echo of a moment that I dreamed of touching you.
It’s All Over
The dream overtook my sleep just before dawn, waking a subconscious hope usually kept hidden like the covers at the foot of the bed hide a missing sock. Or maybe it was trying to awaken me to something I’ve lost, or never admitted I had, like a child’s guileless mind, or that I didn’t want to know what I really wanted. Wanted from my life. What I wanted from you. Then I opened my eyes and the dream was gone. But here you are in this memory of what never happened, and never will. Because, like that dream, and just like that life, just as I’ve woken up, it’s all over.
White Noise
Would you call it white noise I think I hear while I lie here in silence with no one near? No shushing vent like a librarian’s warning, no voice from the same room to wake to each morning. No dog scratching or snoring at my restless feet just more silence where those hobbled feet meet. No soft breathing from someone reading at my shoulder, no sighs because I wish I wish I wish I was bolder. No rustle of cloth or approach soft as a snowflake, to give me a hug, unlike the one’s that feel so fake. No heartbeat within or whispering skin upon my skin, or catch in my throat where words should begin to tell you the story, whose two lonely leads have different wants but really the same needs. No, I lie where nothing but white noises persist and dream that in real lives happy endings exist.
Present
They tell me it’d help if I could be in the moment, be present, as if I’m raising my hand at the head of Row 3 and Sister Basil’s croaking “Joseph Hesch” while she’s drilling me with those blue lasers, seeing me right there. But here I am, thinking about all those years ago instead of feeling your touch on my shoulder, warm and encouraging. But that’s not real either, just another moment I’m not really in, though I can feel your presence as mindfully as these keys ‘neath my fingers. This is my present. But only for the moment. Today, my take on a Mindfulness poem.
Settled
I'm sitting, looking at this cloud, its top constantly shifting in winds I cannot see nor feel. I just want to reach out, grab hold of it and fly, which direction, northeast? I can’t do that, anymore, except in my once moving mind. But now my life is settled, like silt all around me, stuck in this tear-drowned dirt. Here I no longer see nor feel what I once could, when I’d grab the clouds just for that music of the wind to which I’d give lyrics for you to sing. But I can’t hear you sing anymore, either.
Writing Your Name in the Dust
I dusted my headboard today and wondered, as some motes managed to cling to the Mission-style frame, if with my Muse I’ll still be sleeping as long as the next weekend or two. It’s why I hope there’s such a thing as reincarnation and our paths have joined time and again over the course of centuries. And it’s the dust of you I inhale each night, a perfume of historic affection ringing my senses with the possibilities of the endless union of more than our so, so spiritually conjoined souls. For dust thou art, And unto dust shalt thou return. That’s what keeps me a lazy housekeeper and a wheezy, waiting, wide-awake dreamer writing your name in the dust each night.
Morning
I found you wading in the lakeshore shallows, the water up to your knees. It had just come morning and a haze laid upon the water like a net holding the white glowing catch of another dawn. I noticed the bottoms of your shorts had gotten wet, the way a little kid’s would from running forward and back with the waves. Yet all was still. So still I was sure my heartbeat would would send out circles of ripples if I joined you. But you walked up the shore toward me and reached out, pulling me so close I could feel your pebbly goosebumps raised by the cold water on my thighs. I draped you in a throw on your shoulders, holding you close as you warmed to me. The sun on your face made me blink awake, the extra pillow in my arms, a new day slipping into my room through the blinds, a dream lying there next to me as I mumbled, “Morning.”
Lavender and Lemon
I think it might be lavender mixed with a little lemon zest. The memory of how you smell still lingers in me. Who’d have guessed? Perhaps you. Certainly not I, my memories now are hidden. I think I lost them in the dust of the desert years I’ve ridden. All by myself, but not alone, Imagination rode there, too. A third shadow sometimes appeared, so suspiciously shaped like you. When it cast itself on the sand the desert would begin to bloom. Instead of the dust and dried sage, the air was filled with your perfume. At least that’s what I could recall as each sundown you rode away. Even sleep would leave me alone all night as I daydreamed you’d stay. Now I’m old, and rely upon your grace for any second chance to leave loneliness just once more, and between us its vast expanse. That’s all I ask, just to get close, close enough to finally see if lavender and lemon were what you wore, or hopeful fantasy. Since I’m a day behind, I combined two prompts today -- a second chance poem and one using the sense of smell.