a home

Would she in truth a place herein find
fitting feelingly among these loving souls,
distant daring she and this playful we who
in finest sincerity would her wholly embrace,

for hers is a heart that more than seeing feels,
peeling back the layers of once brittle being
quite sagaciously sensate to the setting sun
and the moon and the stars in their courses,

and hers is a mind open, wisely indefinable,
never dallying here and there as is the wont
of many, but delving deeply, discovering
even that which remains most indiscernible.

Were I to wander beyond the wavering light
of lingering years and incessant mortal fears,
I would spy her there, her skin bared to the sun
as grinning she the seething waves explores,

and along these shores sheltered by Pacific climes
and crowned by the tallest redwood trees,
I believe that she in time will willing find
a welcoming hearth and home to call her own.

Salt Lake City 19 February 2022

The California shore at Monterey (Aug 2012)

her smile

There is a tenderness about the night
a gentleness of the heart and hearth,
a craving for home and a warmth
that belies the still and willful winter air.

The moon knows this, and dipping
drowsily down around each
eagerly lifting fairy sweetly blesses
with lessening sorrows this simple man.

Night was when I first spied the spryly
playful image of her, a smile both
sumptuous and serene as keenly
I cast my glance about most beauteous she.

Had I time enough this exquisite maiden
to describe, still my words could not suffice,
for in her eyes I glimpsed more than
sweetness, but the tones of eternity itself.

I stared and stared and still my spirit
could not find respite from this need,
this pleading ponderous rooted being
that grows so to-ing and fro-ing within.

For have I not sought this delicious truth
for so many years, tearfully laughingly
dancing through a life that was at best
incomplete … until this soulful she

with teasing crimson curling locks
and a smile that sang of hearth and heart
and hope drew me passionately forth,
for in the night is a gentleness I shall never forget

and a voice that beckons me home.

Salt Lake City 09 February 2022

this voice

I knew this scene at once
although I had never been:

The color of the gorse
that wonderfully melting
yellow course beneath which
the land rolls and reels.

The stream she follows,
her bare feet dipping
playfully into the cool
waters that run the meadow.

The distance bothy
beneath silent elms,
roots delving deeply into
a much shadowed past.

I hear as much as see
this gorgeous she plying
smilingly blessings toward
the eager stolid shore,

her teasing tempting hair
brightly reddening across
the bluest sky I have ever seen
between this now and ever more.

Her heart beats meaning
beyond words, beyond time
miming a chorus that only
the truest lovers ever know.

Her lips smiling such a
scintillating rhythm
of hope and desire and need
yet pleading bending not.

How could I not know
this place, this home
and hallowed meadow,
this gently meandering burn?

How could I not know
her eyes – my God, her eyes
and lips lusciously imploring,
her skin sweetly exploring?

This meadow, these waters
and winsome leaves in trees
that pray earnest love
and deeply devoted longing –

this she and we in meeting,
departed yet imparting more
of truth than the distant sea
could ever faltering fix –

for now – this bare moment –
I have heard her warmly speak
and in this breathing voice I know
the precious blissful call

of home.

phoenix

There are memories born in the stars,
moments that melt even angry Mars’
coldly stiffening heart with the heatedly
hardening resolve of a tempered soul.

Somewhere just beyond baleful Venus
revolves a starry cluster of most hungrily
galaxy clutching spirits sharply spinning
around such a fiery burning immensity.

And there was she born—my phoenix—
insatiably tasting the heavens themselves
as wings expanding she flew forth
soaring nobly needfully down to earth.

Where I awaited her, plaiting pretty
strands of silk a nest to hopeful construct
for no other reason than that she might
pause a time beneath this fullest moon,

and allow me a moment somewhere
between Mars and Venus to breathing
please her, pet her, and a memory evoke
of the fire that she has ignited in my heart.

İstanbul 19 December 2021

spring – bahar

spring

Life grew and shrank and sharpened
as time passed, and he could not say
when the evening had fallen, or if those
lingering lights truly were the stars
he had known, or even if the moon
would ever reveal its beauty to him again.

For time can be cruel in its selfish
mockery of man’s hopes and needs,
and in the barest moment of calm,
voices emerge once more demanding
his attention as the moon drapes herself
in darkening clouds this night as well.

He knew this had to be so. He knew
there must be a summer of warmth
and playful abandon, and an autumn
of tearful regrets, and a winter
of most urgent and painful longing.

But the snows melted and night fell,
and he opened his doors again to find
his beautiful moon smiling down
on him, for Spring will always come
to those whose honest hearts can sing.

İstanbul 9 December 2021

bahar

Hayat büyüdü ve küçüldü ve keskinleşti
zaman geçtikçe, ve söyleyemedi
akşam çöktüğünde, veya bunlar
kalan ışıklar gerçekten bildiği
yıldızlardı, hatta ay bile, bilemedi,
güzelliğini ona bir kez daha gösterecekti.

Çünkü zaman bencilliğinde acımasız
olabilir, insanın umutları ve ihtiyaçlarıyla
alay edilmesi, ve en sakin anında,
sesler bir kez daha talepkar çıkıp
dikkatini çeker, ay kendini örterken
bu gece de kararan bulutlarda.

Bunun böyle olması gerektiğini biliyordu.
Biliyordu ki sıcak tutkulu bir yaz vardı
ondan sonra ağlayan pişmanlıklarla
bir sonbahar, evet, ve bir kış gelir
en acil ve acılı özlemin mevsimi.

Ama karlar eridi ve gece düştü,
ve kapılarını tekrar açtığında
onun özledigi güzel ayı yine buldu
gökyüzünlerde, onun üzerine gülümsediği
ayı, çünkü bahar her zaman gelir
dürüst kalpleri şarkı söyleyebilenlere.

İstanbul 9 Aralık 2021

affirmation

I watch with ever wonder
as they wisp-like dart
around the room dancingly
prancing effortless steps
with such limitless youth
and envied abandon.

He is a tornado or
so it had been said,
yet in my eyes he is a
prince most potent,
commanding my heart
with each word he speaks.

And she, much more
than regal a princess
lithely evoking my calm
wonder with witty words
as the knowing world bends
around her determination.

My beautiful children
compose time itself
with each giggling leap
as they cavorting the room
expand, and define the day
to suit their brightening play.

Yet always and ever
they return to she who
bore them, who wore
their needs wantingly
inspired to nurture more
than a family hers.

I listen to their play
and I look at exquisite her
as my heart fills with
such longing, for in her
is life most carefully
most joyfully affirmed.

İstanbul 1 December 2021

touch

This Istanbul cold invades me,
pervading every bit of me.
I simpering shiver beneath
its so unkindly clasping, me
grasping that there is more
to this, that somewhere between
the pleasure and the pain,
between breathing and being
were moments of simple enduring
honesty—a space, a place, a time
so very extraordinary if only
because in its utter banality
it conveys such divinity—
the perfectly quiet, subtle
and unadorned moment
when the greatest significance
of life is expressed by nothing
more than a touch.

İstanbul 22 November 2021

[Thank you, Allison.]

only you

There is not in this world a place
nor a time defined by the needs of others
that can guide these limbs, these notions
forward quite so remarkably
as does the merest thought of you.

In my deepest heart I cradle yet
every memory of you, so bold
and beautiful beyond any words
that even I could evoke to assist me,
for you are nothing short of exquisite.

I have treasured your playful voice
teasing and taunting me to debate,
your voracious mind consuming
knowledge in a manner undaunted,
daring arrogant truth itself to concede.

Your laughter illuminated the dark
daring me to be more than me, as you
filled the room with such vibrancy
that I had never witnessed before
no matter how far I have traveled.

But at this moment, this bare time
of mine, as the craven cold creeps
into my bones and the sun descends
wearily once more—at this time
what I miss most about my love, you

is the boundless power of your touch
to hold back the darkening tide
and bid mighty Ra himself return
across the heavens with a warmth
that only you could ever command.

İstanbul 21 November 2021

spring

The ghost of spring wanders here,
aimless and anxious and waiting
to be reborn in small immaculate petals.

With tiny timid steps it traverses
winter’s indifferent graying skies
longing to repaint the world verdurous.

How lithely it will bend itself to the task,
its eager fingers caressing these hills,
birthing blues and greens and such blessings.

I watch, and everywhere I go here,
each trembling step I take into this winter,
I see you—the very image of spring!

For in you fecund hope finds a wondrous home.
In you is life and laughter without equal,
and a beauty that deftly reaches beyond time.

Winter in Göreme, Turkey (Nov 2021)

a song

There is a song that stays
playing through my thoughts
so compellingly calling me
that I cannot help but soulful
sing it aloud again and again
wherever I may be
and whoever might hear,
following each and every note
as it teases my memories
from their reluctant slumber,
drawing needfully my thoughts
into a most insistent longing.

And I welcome it.

The voice of my soul sings to it,
as I youthfully caper and dance
and delight in the zealous joy
that such a melody instills.
The sounds are like colors,
painting fields and flowers
and the dreaming deepest woods,
and even a distant strand
where feet dive deep into the sand,
and laughter splashes over the waves.
You are the song I love to sing,
the song that urges me to hope and desire,
and to moonlight that glows
across your so beautiful face.