Branching Out

No royal secret
Simply sweet clarity
Observing surrounds
Following upward twists
Jagged icy branches
Touching sky to clouds
Evening walks, words adrift
As breath on frosted air
It’s the same for trees
As for people, he said
An inner knowingness
Eternally reaching, flowing
Creating on the way up
Not waiting to arrive
She was almost afraid to ask
Was this about them?
And as soft lights of home
Combed the dim cul-de-sac
Scattering windows as stars
The cityscape lived aloud
Everywhere, branching out

© 2012 S. Michaels
Breakaway – Spreading Wings

Life That’s Right

On the far side of days spent dream weaving
After surging wild roars of parting seas
Beyond elemental growls, earth, wind, fire
Past adversity’s bumbling back road tests
Storms sunburst. Stretches, plains of mind
Transformed, wide as bold new humming horizons
And believing more, there came a time of choosing
The life that’s right, she decided, begins inside

© 2012 S. Michaels
Breakaway - Spreading Wings

For Burns o’ Alloway

Och, thank heav’n for Rabbie Burns
Th’Burns o’ Alloway, tha’ bard!
For somehow somethin’ in th’air
Around his noble place o’ birth
Tha’gold’n lan’terns o’laburn’um
Sure’ly stirr’d my head a turn
Th’ day in May a’time ago an’ times
Sae pretti’ly’ kiss’d was I it seem’d
It ‘chang’d me ’round in mind
Och, apologies, dear Rabbie for
Ye ken I’ll n’ev’r pen half fine as thee
But surely I must speak mi words!
An’ tell of how I tho’t of thee lean’in
There on th’ cottage doorway bent
An’ as a bairn rock’d a’sleep sweet’ly
How tha’luv you penn’d bloom’d furst here
In tha’clever fair wee head o’yours
An as I dream o’red red roses o’June
Or how time al’ways bids me say fare weel
To tha’ fair land of Scotland’s sea an’ skies
I know t’is tru’ tha’ sunny Alloway day
Steep’d in clover’d air o’gardens green
I heard th’bird songs an’ siren songs
Imprint’d deep call’in me back tae Alba
An’ Burns, please hear me say it clear
I’m certain ye had some’thin to do wi’it!

© 2012 S. Michaels
Siren Songs – Poetic Imprints of Scotland

Happy Rabbie Burns Day! Read  more on Burns Night
Scotland the World Over

Expecting Tulips

Indisputable truth
Insatiable thirsty seasons
Sprouted intolerably weak
Moments,  heavy limbs
Stark vacuum bottle days
Devoid of life-giving
Yet seasons too-long dry
Inevitably inspired
Dreams of refilling
And coming up half-empty
Stubborn as a mule
She dug up stale bulbs
Begged earth’s solid mercy
Tenderly replanted in cold
Expecting tulips
Accelerating moves
Faith had decided long ago
Underground valentines
Were not hers to design
Only to name the blooms
Celeste, Zoe, Valois
Augustine, Joel, Nathan
Madly impossible not to smile
When ice flowed in sun
And fruitfulness spilled

© 2012 S. Michaels
Breakaway – Spreading Wings

At The Boathouse

Stacks
And stacks
Yesterday albums
Cluttered, undusted
Generations cornered
In pages like petals
Pressed memories
Blanketed long
By snows and seasons
Turning, turning
Moons over oceans
Baggage checks
Boxes, baskets
Remember that place?
He asked her
So much stuff
She murmured
Tracing initials
Theirs, still
Carved deep
On a window sill
Next to his woodwork
At the boathouse
rue de Bellechasse
An old street sign
Grinning, he posted it
Above the doorway
She laughed saying
Bliss reads minds
Staying the course
They had returned
That spring like birds
To rebuild sanctuary

© 2012 S. Michaels
Breakaway – Spreading Wings