Where My Soul Is Housed Brooding into dawn and the last flexible patchesOf goldenrod, I am singing something even I can’t followWhere motes of light hang over the edge of waterAnd a rose finch has flown away with my dreamsTension in the hush— in the wind-blown longingDesperate for the burn and my innocent refrainFor just one tree with a wealth of applesOr the blooming I still run to the hills forI watch as milkweed fans a...

I cannot stand, nor walk or flyOnly collide in my barren yardIn stunned moments of claritySoil still clutched in my handsTaste this despair and wormwoodStill bitter on my tongue; I bruise my fleshOn bark, dead roots and cold abuseMy face still stings with toothless songPuzzled by where I am, how I got hereLost in the looming darkness, I am stillFragile as a pressed oak leafPain the only constantMy mind maroons itself in s...

Eyes ruined from neglectStrained below all she holds-Above all that slips away Her gentle flame draws breathIgniting strength of ashen dreamsCommanding smiles of passersby Slipping between beats in timeShe proclaims love her sacred hymnAnd so dispels all earthly shadows Her nest lies upon ancestral plainsSweetness of Mother Earth’s bosomMoonstones held by courageous gripShe sings of praise and of lightSoaring where lilies...