Startled Elf

Power Girl!

"Pain" 11/12/09

"Change," 9/7/09

I find myself increasingly
alone among the crowd, of late,
who once comprised my happy state
and now share not their lives with me.

I dwell on sweetest days that never
will return, and silently I
ask these darkened halls if they know why
familiar ties must sever.

And when I find society
these days, it lies among the small,
who share with me their thoughts and all
their toys, and all the things they saw
that my eyes couldn't see.

Children are unique in that
they aren't always preoccupied
with leaving all the past behind--
because they have no past.

But everything that grown-ups do,
and all the selves that they create,
they must destroy and then remake,
and never do they think that Fate
suggests them what they choose.

I stand atop a tiny island,
watching all my past rush past;
those to whom I clung so fast
slip by and never look toward land.

Oh Change! Nature's intricacy
that's wove like a strong silken thread
or painted in bold strokes of red
in patterns we can't see!

"To Andrew," 11.5.08

I feel you touch my hand
in small moments that pass like
dandelion seeds on a fall wind.
And I see the sun on your hair
and know that the world is outside
of our little sphere of peace.

Where did you tuck away
those dark words I threw at you
the other day by the park?
You were unable to
retrieve my coldnesses
from wherever it was you put them.

I hear a small warm laugh from you.
Why do you look at me
with eyes that cannot judge?
My eyes are black pools,
taking in no gold sunlight,
and giving none back.

But your love is warm light,
warm enough to melt
the years of frosty vigilance
rimming my icicle heart.
Oh, my gorgeous summer day!
Hold me tightly when clouds pass.

The New Explorer, 4/27/09

Here is the American girl,
the fruit of the American dream,
made possible by Puritan will,
Edison, Henry Ford, and IBM.

Here is the Hispanic surname,
evidence of brave immigrants;
note the cell phone in hand,
the imprint of hard-working parents.

As she dozes serenely on the desk
paid for by her ancestors' dreams,
I notice her bra straps just match
her large, ocean-blue earrings.

Ocean blue, the color of fear
and the shade of unknown hope
as the Puritans made their way down the pier
and embarked for that fabled coast.

And a prayer was on all of their lips
and the salt caked all of their skin.
Something had to be better than this--
what they sought to secure for their kin.

She dreams a dream and it goes like this:
A voice speaks to her in a vast field:
"You will drink from wells ye did not dig
and dwell in houses ye did not build."

"Requiem for Wild Cherries," 2/1/09

Cherries live out their existences
too high for us to take note.
their days are often similar;
they rock in the trees like boats.

But their deaths are always shocking,
and frightfully violent,
as they fling themselves with passion
toward the carnage on the cement.