• Always Waiting

Golden yellow and rusted red

Leaves bristle around my head

They rustle in the wind above

Whisper words of you, my love

I can imagine you lying next to me

But that is something that can never be

I can imagine your smile warming my skin

But I force myself to remember, once again

Salmon pink and dusty blue

Sunsets always remind me of you

The warmth of the light

Wars with the cold of night

I remember the sound of tinkling glass

The road a slick and long dark mass

I remember the sound of help, too far away

Your breathing shallow as I begged you to stay

I remember the sound of clothes collecting tears

Staring into your distant eyes filled with lost years

Bright as the moon and soft as cotton

The stars remind me of all forgotten

The last words you spoke before leaving

I’ll be in the skies, always waiting

• Sleeping in the Forest - Mary Oliver

I thought the earth

remembered me, she

took my back so tenderly, arranging

her dark skirts, her pockets

full of lichens and seeds. I slept

as never before, a stone

on the riverbed, nothing

between me and the white fire of the stars

but my thoughts, and they floated

as light as moths among the branches

of the perfect trees. All night

I heard the small kingdoms breathing

around me, the insects, and the birds

who do their work in the darkness. All night

I rose and fell, as if in water grappling

with a luminous doom. By morning

I had vanished at least a dozen times

into something better.