Old age doesn’t exist for all
     Because many claim its presence;
I submit that living goes on
     Through many-hued firmaments.

A shade of love lives here
     And over there, a victory, I deem –
Patience caught them in her lair
     And surprise – she frolics in between

For one might, on some fateful day –
     Pluck a strange flower
And on another, move a rock away
     And something wonderful – uncover.

~~~~~~~

City lights, city lights –
Look at all the city lights!
Some are red, some are blue –
Some light up a roof –
Such are our summer nights.

A therapeutic wind blows
As I dare to look below
At the freeway steadily
Moving as an artery
By the bright headlight glow.

From such a great height
In the lateness of the night –
A thrill to young hearts
The scene before us imparts.
What wondrous city lights!

~~~~~~~

Sweat is the other garment
     You wear in the desert
When the only water is in the cactus
     And all but the flies are inert

But a cool layer of sweat
     Is a hiker’s proof of award
For taking a thin trail
     And in curiosity, moving forward.

~~~~~~~

As empty as the future
So is a soaked page
Whose ink has run off.
I hope to be the author;
A new and boundless decade
Awaits my pen's touch.

~~~~~~~

The treetop glimmers outside my window
     As light, dancing upon the leaves –
Shimmers off each leaf in soft yellow.
     From afar, my attention is retrieved
By light, pure and perfectly aglow.

In the wind, swaying gently –
     Each leaf is twirled as a ballerina –
Playing with my fragile jealousy.
     I think I hear in the wind a viola –
Oh, light – would you dance with me?

~~~~~~~

It was hefted upon a breeze -
   As in a warm, flowing current
Through a sea of palo verdes -
   To search for an embankment.

That seed of promise -
   An implicit aster -
Was sent to broken gneiss
   To become one with nature -

A golden bloom to come
   To an expectant glen -
Not knowing how it found home
   Except that it did.

~~~~~~~

A dream is a butterfly
Fresh from the cocoon
That is realized and soon
Flutters up into the sky

Or faltering, goes astray
Is suddenly killed
While young still
And fast fades away.

~~~~~~~

Every day is a new adventure
     A new iota, a new gnosis –
Search not by the easy standard
     But see through the eyes of genesis.

The more I learn, the more I love
     What man before me has done.
It catapults my soul aloft –
     I yearn for that higher plane.

Push back those old perimeters.
     Notch in my brain a new wrinkle.
I forge pathways never traversed
     And find my world bigger still.

~~~~~~~

I believe in charity –
Simple but profound –
Joy made compound –
Spurred momentarily.

One act – hand to hand –
Across the bridge –
Is one’s privilege
For the strong withstand.

I believe in humanity
And if a smile be requited –
Humble and innocent –
It little cost me.

~~~~~~~

Blanched veils there and above
   Hold it in stony repose
Throughout time's continuum
   And blustering air flows.

Earth granted an ovation -
   Nodding its magnificence -
But bigger still is the one
   Who goes and conquers it.

~~~~~~~

Don’t tell it to the wind
To be blown away as vapor
Or share it with a gossiper
As fragile as a dandelion.

Don’t speak of it on the mountaintop;
Even the clouds have ears.
For fear that the Devil hears –
Don’t pray for it aloud to God.

Let the wish build up inside
Then straight-faced, release it subtly –
As your actions make it be –
Until its existence can’t be denied.

~~~~~~~

Olden knowledge should smolder
As smoke rising from an ember -
Universal but not common -
Peculiar but not forgotten.
Tell me of those days of yore -
Of circumstances transpired -
So I can repeat on my lips
That which slumbers in silence.

~~~~~~~

Let us drink in the sunshine
From a cup of globe mallow
As would one of palatine
Privilege beside God’s throne.
Here’s to another springtime.
Here’s to hope for tomorrow.

~~~~~~~

Grass is a taut crew;
They stand at attention
As soldiers do
With orders from the sun –

Never having thoughts
That their purpose is trite
Or any doubts.
Each is a cosmopolite

Of their colonnade.
How exemplary –
I whispered to one blade –
To live as thee.

~~~~~~~

Flowers in the desert
Vibrantly grow forth
In yellows and purples
Despite the salty Earth

And when I think about
How birds can fly at all
I am reminded that
Anything is possible.