Heart’s temple paints
with light,
finding courage in small things;
a slap on the back,
warmth pressed
between honest hands.
Each time pulse rises
on fingertips
of hope
heartache breaks
the plane of our efforts.
So many sleep
and dream of waking
to forgiveness in a sunrise
while fate echoes
ancient and forgotten tragedies.
Long shadows of our times.
Mistrust hardens the veins
of our cities
where numbing silences
walk through hope’s ashes.
Winter creeps on
heavy with wounds healing,
wounds weeping.
Feel the blaze of turbulent eyes,
the pungent aroma of fear.
Each wound trapped in the blood.
The ripening peach sheds
her fertility.
Long shadows of these times.
These times, when the eye recedes,
when soul contracts,
let us rise up
from darkness and dream
that our wounds may remind us
we need not be sad beggars
for a springtime to yield
this interminable winter thaw.
Let us step from shadow to light
and rise up to remember
in strength and tenderness,
truth and taste,
pure and insatiable,
the waters we seek.