A Fine Season

Now it is the fine season
when I found my friend.

We have a year of seasons shared now.
Her friendship a gift slowly unwrapped.

A gift one didn't expect;
She surprises me still.


With her strength and generosity,
tenacity, will.

Grace, skill,
Delicacy, patience and curiosity.

She sent the spray of ruby pressed-leaf in my palm;
There are tears in my eyes.

Love Poem

A reed in the wind
Pushed near to the ground
Who could imagine the tensile strength
Of your will.

Constantly tested
Yet you feel no pressure;
Elusive spirit
More grounded than most.

Fascinating submersion
Of ego…
Able to totally immerse
In the field. And yet.

You are a man.
Of fragile nature,
almost delicate
In your sensibility.

I am wary of that … sensitivity.
In you, who sees through sheer pretense.
You forgive much …
But believe this: I never assume your generosity.

The reed can become stiff, and unyielding.
I want never to experience that cold, cold wind
That would be life
Without you.

Haiku for an Artist

Janey the sleepless/
Pure color in eye and hand/
It's her flaming sword.

Life's Pattern

In a corner of my garden ... once overgrown profusion of green:
spade-shaped leaves, an ivy guarded by thorns.

I never walked too close, afraid
of tendrils capturing my ankle,
dragging me into itself –
then, never free, lost in that barbed lattice.

Strange plant.
On occasion, and only at night,
it burst into bloom.

Waxy, white petals,
surrounding a flower cup,
gleaming in the dark.

Each floral chalice
holding drops of fluid,
heavy with unbearably sweet, hot scent.

For a season, this plant tangled around my heart.
And then, within life’s pattern,
died back.

I work in my garden,
potting and pulling spent flowers off vines.
Glancing at times
to where that plant thrived.

Nothing grew there.
Until today.

Sweetpeas

Tissue-veined, with
Tendrils outreaching, a
Delicate honeyed scent.

Ombreing shades of
The color of blood.

Fluted foldings shyly,
Simply beautiful in being.