Saturday, September 29, 2012


And besides, it’s cold
and that makes me think of you.

One more night in Russia’s winter
listening to Rachmaninoff under vaulted ceilings.

What is it floating between me and the sun?
Frozen humidity reflecting light—a million tiny mirrors.

If I were a wish
I would be the hope of one more snowfall.

Make me twenty-one again
standing alone at night in snowdrift under foreign street lamps.

Homesick for home away from home,
for fur in my hat and gloves,
for the crunch of white flakes beneath my boots,
for history every step along the frozen Neva,
for the past I’ll never see again.

Have you been in love before?
I have. She was Russia. And she was cold.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Things that fall

A Leaf
A Petal
A Teardrop

A Snowflake
A Footstep
A Tree

A Bomb
A Soldier
A Nation

A Lover
A Fighter
And Me

I went running

I went running tonight.
The weather was optimal for memory.
I was one with the dark moist air.
My footsteps were soft,
my breath silent.
But my soul was on fire,
and my left knee screamed
inside its cage of flexing tissue.
My mind raced ahead,
snapping forward against the taut leash of flesh,
willing my age to catch up with youth.
I felt alive, if only half-way so.
The other half in memory.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Impression

You left a print, not a story.

Beauty paints an impression,
a thing pressed into the soul,
not a time-line of events.
I bear your mark, your print.

Despite my dark nature,
I have in me small lights . . .

and you are there.