Poetry

 Each of these poems is from my book, The Spaces Between.
available on Amazon

Faith

You don’t remember it, my children
the endless trek across the dry places the lone tree with a pump beneath
a few handfuls of grass greening.
One clear Mason jar full of water.
Stop! You must not drink a drop.
This is what you don’t know—
You must pour it all down the shaft
your parched mouth watching it disappear
into the workings below, the leather cuffs
and steel pistons. Then you pump.
The steel shrieks and groans.
Nothing comes. Despair closes
your throat. Keep pumping.
More resistance now
your arm protests
then great gushes
speed over your hands
cool your feet
open your throat.
In the end you must fill the jar.
Leave it for the next traveler.

As Is

Not enough
I think
not enough cleverness
nor glitter
nor style.
And with that feeling
the door closes
generosity vanishes.
If I can
if only find
the simple way
to give what I have
what I am
the messy colorful house
the bare-bones words
of daily poems
offering
without expectation
something opens.

The Spaces Between

Drab October day
begins to slide into November
by way of fading yellow and gray,
red leaves underfoot going
brown moment by moment.
There is a space inside things, inside
movement, even inside thoughts.
There is a space inside the maple trunk,
a space between the trees, each
by each, and around
us all, reaching outward
to cloudy sky and beyond.
And for a moment there is
the space that always is
through us-it-you-them
… no words here…
yes, that space.