I’ve been lost in pictures too long lately,
Envying frozen faces and captured smiles,
Forgetting the prints they left on soul-marked pages,
Moments melted into goldened glue.
I cannot leave the cover closed.
Dusty echoes calling through shut time folds.
I return often, liking the happiness encased there,
Framed perfectly in hazy-hued memory.
I leave today pictureless. Frozen moments
not possible in thawing Spring. I find today
trivial. Fall will wish for April snapshots,
but I wish only for wrinkled dust.
2.
I sit on April’s rebirth, longing to join Chaucer
in past pilgrimage. He taught me life
and air full of feathered, contenting spices.
Something appears in traveled miles,
More than worn shoes and souvenirs
The soul’s skin forms signs of age,
Lines of living are created.
I miss wrinkled living,
Finding new faces in the mirror
Of fresh-breathed days.
April departs and I remain
Hoping for future paths--
Their worn promise of story.
3.
Time is the marathon runner of Olympia.
Pulling me in persistent journey,
Willing my mind to follow the frame,
To live the speed of life present treads.
The past grows older daily, months ago
become years. My reach grows long; yet,
grip loosens, outlines fade. Moments
once embossed tatter to threads,
used as laces for running game shoes.
Bow-tied memories on my feet,
Racing forward becomes easy.
4.
I cannot look back, refusing to be a pillar
of savorless salt. I plow my future furrow deep,
closing my eyes in ink-spilled finish instead.
Signed off is nail-gripped past,
Tiny seeds drop from today’s toil—
Deep blue is the thunder-iced horizon.
The promise of future fruit sweet.
Some till their path with salt. I,
with mustard, remove mountains
onto my heart’s fleshy table.
Stand on the plain, like a laden tree.
Whittle The Word into weathered trunk:
Carved is Remember not Regret.
-DaLe 06.05.10
