Night Falls

The time of solitude arrived
as I walked alone between the wood and the sea

Shadows riding the last rays of the sun
flee before the nights return, leaving
as the bats take flight, the one candle
flickering strange light across my path

The hour of the moon is here...
expectations of the day forgotten, as
mists whisper songs of the nocturnal

Every sound, painfully loud...but quiet as
my heart beat drowns out all thought

Nervous, I look behind, into the eye
of the night, it stares back as I walk faster...

trying to lose the uneven balance of nightmares
and dreams, everything crashes
around me at the discovery of your
mouth whispering my name...

Beltane Fires

You are the warm fruit of the
garden where flames grow,
berries filling with sugars
from tumescent clouds, full of
spring rains flowing across senses.
Delirium spreads slowly to nerve
impulses, radiating out from
breast to hips in that synergy of
feeling all know, pulling
navels down and in…..breath
catching in throats.
A bee dances, erotic, spinning, returning
to find pollen, honey dripping sinuous
and slow, lost in reverie of the moment,
drunk with desire of the hunt. The
fire closes slowly around as
the hummingbird seeks the
red hibiscus of the sun burning
hot and white…where lovers melt, liquid
and smooth, slipping slowly into
the waning moments of light. Still,
in this light, free of shadows, ecstasy
and contentment intertwine in the
safety of tangled limbs.

Meditate

Quiet and silent, rain fall, drops weighing heavy on
leave tips. Tumescent clouds of the spring awakening
kiss the green fringe of the forest. A bird call shatters
the tranquility and silence drifts slowly away, settling
in darker places where nothingness exists….

Slowly, meditative, the brook raises its song in
unison with southern winds, each weaving a blanket of
calm in the life of the day. The ferae naturae pierces
hearts with each inhalation, lungs fill with the silence
that we only know in our dreams of solitude ….

It is the peace that follows that confounds you,
giving the appearance of thought, the path of light
settles around, leading to the tranquil end of
consciousness where earthly reality ends and om
happens as we reach our nirvana, a sweet death.

Waiting across Distance

I sit here waiting, no choice, as I have to
love you. the thought of you keeps me from sleep,
so many dawns, so many dusks. Night falls and I
am alone as the sun rises around you, so far
away . . shadows bathing me in lassitude.

I do not want to exist in this world between
night and day. Am I destined to be trapped,
solitary in this tomb of anticipation? This
existence is cold, subterranean, while you
walk under an equatorial sun.

It is at this time, hidden and transformed by the
fog rising off the gray river, I turn liquid,
quicksilver, moving between earth and sun,
traveling across oceanic clouds for one moment
of your laughter, one moment of your smile. But
you are not there. Where are you?

Lost between here and our future, tears become
rivers in the dry air of my soul. The blood of nights
lost, of nights without you, runs cold day after day,
night after night. But as my eyes close, twilight creeps
into the dark, carrying you to me on a ray of light,
new hope again filling my dreams of tomorrow.

Carson's path not taken

Will spring arrive?

As I walked through the forest
the sun flashed yellow off
the warblers wings, a fleeting
glimpse of hope. But they came, a
pestilence, crushing trillium,
creating pain in this world of green.
I looked at the forest, once vibrant
with life...now bloodied and black.
Tears fall, disappearing into the dust
of this march.

How long will this storm last? All
is strange, shadows falling where
light use to play, this pestilence
spreads...razing, building, unrelenting
destruction marking the step march
across the land. Why the disdain for
what sustains life? Superficial, self-
righteousness empowering their machinations
as the ignorant follow, so many lemmings
heading for the cliff of oblivion.

I wish spring would arrive, bubbling
up in a well-head of sap, verdant green
and blood, and take back what was once
alive, washing away this desolation. Will it
be in time to end this weariness, this cold
winter?

Journal Entry - Research Cruise

From my journal, 2/97.

Are we in the twilight of the health of our natural world? It is 530AM and I am swaying approximately 12 feet above the Atlantic Ocean on the upper deck of the R/V Bluefin. The smooth swell is moving the boat just enough on our beam that the cables and chains "jingle" in a musical way. The sound is relaxing. We are moving ESE and the sun is rising on the forward port quarter, it's light being filtered by low lying cumulus clouds out towards Bermuda and the great Sargasso Sea. Off the stern, 2 pilot whales roll in a very deliberate manner, as if they are just waking to the rarefied light and air of the morning...and it is new to them. "Phoosh"...their breathing is so "powerful" and ends with a slight snap. On the starboard side, there is a storm petrel doing it's pittering dance across the top of the rollers as if it could walk there for an indefinite amount of time. So cool.

I am comfortably wrapped by diesel smelling blankets in Marirosa's hammock. A spot of much envy for those who are not quick enough to grab when we are moving between sampling stations or when we are simply in down time. We have had as many as 3 of us in this hammock, trying to stay warm while watching HB comet. Speaking of which, the milky way goes forever and I never tire of seeing the expanse of stars. I am lucky as very few get to view the night sky without extraneous lights of society clouding everything. Just incredible and almost overwhelming. I was up almost all night working on the stern deck sorting zooplankton and dissecting fish and the other many organisms we dragged up from their benthic homes. In this light, sharks, and other larger shadows just on the periphery of the light, feed on the massive amounts of "bait" fish that come to the light like fireflies. But, once the stern lights were turned off, the incredible night sky almost lit the world enough for reading. Or maybe this is just the effects of the cuba libres (sic..libras) that are still swirling around my head.

Flow

Looking back to the east, heron feathers
scatter in the wind as the tempest roars,
Beyond the limits of vision, past the barred owl,
sitting quietly in a dead snag, follow the sinuous
curve of the Altamaha flow, twisting in red clay
from distant lands, break out of the current where
the new stream cuts across tidal marsh, do not
pause in the lee shore to rest, press forward past
the sleeping giants, green backs blending in with
salt marsh grass, move faster lest you fall asleep,
distracted by the egrets frantic wings, beating into
the gale. Ride faster across the cresting waves
churning depths into buttermilk, do not fall prey
to the siren call of the cypress log, inexorably
speeding to the oceans mouth, to be caught in
shoaling waters.

Swim, kick, reach for the rays of rebellious light
dodging billowing clouds, listen carefully for
the beauty of the rivers conjunction with storm
rains, follow the guide found within. What has
the wildly crazy oystercatcher to say about this
stream? the pulse of the storm? Will he lead you
to safer waters? or astray? How can you know? It is
trust you must follow to avoid the seductive call of
calm waters boring in safety. To reach the ocean is to
begin the trip...but which one, which life? Persevere,
but not by force of will. On moonless nights, sunless
days, empty your soul and let the vacuum fill with
decades past, and future hope. Just as everything,
everyone has stopped in westward waters laying in
the calm of lee shores, you, on the stream of life will
be remembered in the winds of future storms, a memory
of unknown vistas, never denied to those that listen,
those that see, those that feel...your life has become
the prize for those choosing to swim, unreachable by most,
but always calling.

Migrations End

Summer abandons swiftly the changing leaves
from coastal plain to mountain crags,
kettles of hawks, skeins of geese,
fleeing cold winds and snow,
travel on fragile wings, stitching
worlds together in a global
web of seasonal ebbs and flows.

Billions of travelers, myriad wings hitchhiking
on storm fronts, propelled by muscle and
instinct, ride oceanic winds across the
face of the moon, filtering through
tree branches like the music of stars.

This unifying phenomenon,
following the ripening of fruit to
ancient equatorial lands of verdant
forests and swamps, shifts endlessly
in a changing world threatening to
break this binding tapestry of
feathers and warm nights, to dissolve
slowly into the forest, fragmented
and dying.

A Live Oak I once knew...

The live oak, gray moss draped, has stood 400 years,
limbs reaching out for 100 feet like the tentacles
of an octopus heavy with resurrection fern, the tired
arms droop to the ground.

How many birds made their home among these
leaves, what stories did the bears tell as they
snapped twigs, lounging on limbs, seeking
fat acorns for winter's fast?

I climbed these branches everyday of my youth,
looking for a better glimpse of the horizon; what Guale
did the same before me? How many nights were
spent under this towering umbrella during summer rains?

The bulldozer knows nothing of life.

Falling awake

Lying beneath a southern sky,
the river rushes by sleeping migrants,
resting wings beside the shore;
Venus sits at the tip of a pendulum
whose arc arrested, moves little across
the night sky. I sleep alone beyond the sharp
bite of the wind and feel content and full of
love.

The night reluctantly gives way to the
declaration of the sun on the horizon;
but on the broad plain between then and
now, dreams break over me like towering
waves as nocturnas sleepy web begins
to dissolve into a light consciousness.

Your dove rules my awakening,
swaying before me between the receding
shadow of sleep and the brilliant light of
the sun; one to sigh and be merry with,
friend of the moon, holding me as I am.

Is passion for you enough to shape
this random joy? or, is the root of my
happiness found in deeper recesses of
my heart, where under the waning moon,
your smile resides, stored, for times
when you are away...?

Where do I find wisdom? My seeking eyes
burn, staring at the flame slowly becoming
the sun. If I embrace, will you believe?
Whatever was, will always be...whatever
will be is what we dream.

Falling awake, I feel the touch of your
wet skin. You break me in half as we kiss,
dancing wildly round, like animals in
the spring of life. Immediate, we sing,
finally losing ourselves in each other.

Finally

For you, I have returned from my journey
to sorrow, I thought I was dying. The moon
lit the path, your fire warmed my cold bones
as the dark emptiness fled from me.

Does anyone love as we do? We walk among
the ruins of our past, our hearts fusing, cleaving
the oblivion. Your vase overflows with rose petals
rising from a single stem as spring rains wash
away desolation and fear. In this freshet

we stop, consuming the fruit fallen at our
feet, only sweet flesh enduring, transformed
into a horizon of dead egos, becoming flowers
budding in the spring of our new year.

This poem and the previous are from one thought, hence, the commonalities such as the rose petals...!

Beginning

Rose petals fall into deep noon shadows as
midsummer's heat shimmers, batheing the house in
yellow, and the beach sand of long eroded
mountains piles up in window sills, traveling
on easterly winds.

In the nothingness of our tight skin,
your body melds with mine. Created to
fit perfectly around me in the twilight
of ships colliding, you clasp me,
rendering my soul.

As the sun begins it's descent
into tomorrow, we are anointed with
warm light, lost in this landscape
where poetry is born.

Fruit Cocktail

Lightning streaks over the field, peach orchards
surrounded by a sea of black tar, rain
runs in rivers across cement, as
children play on the porch,
plant oils and ozone permeating
the surrounding space.

The farmer stands, hands on his hips,
keen eye to the dark storm,
calculating his losses, pesticides
dripping down trunks, from fruit heavy with
sugar, leaves drooping, down into the aquifer,
cycling into cisterns and pumps.

The laughing children, parched from king
of the mountain, drink deeply from the
well, the rusty hand pump squeaking, but
cells divide, mutating, split genes, j-shaped,
as the farmer calculates the cost of the next
application, better living through chemicals,
more money, larger orchards, more applications,
a legacy for his children.

Evening Walk

Red-Headed
Woodpecker
crimson blood over black
undulating flight across
a well worn path

Bright-Green
Longleaf Pine
layered rough brown bark
bleeding pungent sap
candles lit by heat lightning

Purple-Blue
Blackberries
picked from thorn-protected home
light scratches, skin welts
stained fingerprints in journal

Orange-Yellow
Clay
south Georgia mud
sensual, slick, sticky
oozes between little toes

White-Gray
Cumulus
thunderheads reach crescent moon
warm rain lightly falls
another summer day ends!

Cycling

Riding sea winds, gray clouds formed
of ocean waters are a contrasting canvas
to the spring marsh exploding from winters rest
in sulfurous muds. Green life overwhelming
winter starkness

The sea is calm as dolphins
roll languid in the dark waters,
waiting for the stream of mullet moving
north from warm wintering grounds,
other residents no longer hiding in depths.

Nutrient rich waters of life and death trickle
through dendritic tidal canals on the ebbing tide,
renewing life, providing sustenance to the young
of the year, a nursey as profound as a baby suckling
a mothers teat. Important but ignored.

Blood is soon to stain the water as the southern
sun beats down on the head of spring. Life again cycles
with the flow of the season, interrupted by the poetry of
those that live here in silence...but for brief predatory
callings.

Certain and inevitable death coming full circle with
birth.

Calling..

I sit alone in the forest among
green pillars of Hemlock and
White Pine, smells of broken
limbs and crushed leaves permeate
the air like woodsmoke from
ancient funereal pyres. Alive.

My time spent, I walk to the waters
edge like a newly hatched turtle
seeking ancient waters, a vastness
of brine greater than the stars of
Andromeda. Here among Atlantic
rollers, hidden benthic predators

spy my path tracing in the bioluminescence
of zooplankton announcing my presence,
chemical impulses in a crystal clear
world. Sargassum and wrack my only shelter,
my arms struggle to keep me afloat, hiding
me from the hungry eyes beneath

in the deepest depths of my fear of
mortality. They explode, rising
from the dark, seeking a repast of
soft pink flesh so easily consumed,
scaleless and sweet. My body responds
to Darwin's coding, acetyl choline burning

synapses driving me forward, gasping. I
explode over the gunwale of my small
vessel, teeth snapping shut on air beneath
my feet. I drift safe from the deep,
breathing. Looking toward shore, confused
by the allure of the trees, I wonder if I can

resist their call in the future.

Aftermath

Clothes, lying here, there
Sighs, echoes of bliss and lust.
Sheets fallen to the floor.

Emily and Sophia

Winter rapidly flees north as spring ushers in
a world of light and wind. All has been changed,
rains creating life from gray, touching
every seed, root, and leaf...inexorable growth.

We walk, hand in hand, through a watercolor
of orange, cadmium, and cochineal flowers.
Their tiny hands pull away as they dance pas
de trois with Baryshnikov across a stage

of emerald green, pirouettes as graceful
as Pavlova while Warblers approve with
cacaphonous delight and cottonwood seeds drift
across their stage like so many fairies.

Their dance spins out of control, reveling
in the freedom of a warm sun, a saturnalia
of laughter and smiles, running wild across
this brief moment of time.

Their dance spins out of control, reveling
in the freedom of a warm sun, a saturnalia
of laughter and smiles, running wild across
this brief moment of time.

DISSOLUTION

Silence, night descended like a gown
slowly falling from my lover's shoulders,
so unexpected.

Squinting, nictitating, I struggle to see the
hands of the clock, as it moves to strike
midnight. So dark.

Will I see daybreak...before the looming
storm engulfs my soul, ennui falling
heavy against me?

Apollo, why have you failed me? Where
is my sun to light a path as I
walk in the dark?

ON THE EDGE

Early summer, I look out at the boundless green-blue water,
looking for the undulating gray of dolphins,
formations of pelicans, touching wingtips, searching…
mullet and menhaden fleeing certain death.

As the sun rises higher towards its daily zenith, blinding
light sparkles off waves rolling in to crescendo
against white sands; I look upward at laughing gulls, black head,
orange beak, contrasting against the deep blue sky.

I muse upon the stranded sanddollars, short small arms
struggling to find shelter in silt and mud, as seaweed rolls
back and forth, timing tidal waters. Whelk cases, forsaken,
encapsulated perfect copies dwelling in briny purses, caught
in a sandy prison.

Irresistible, fecund and rich morass, the ocean has no
memory, no conscious, just birth, death, and rebirth, breathing in
the currency of blood. She hides her secrets well, sharing only with
the moon and sun.

We only notice the white sand, opalescent shells, dead
loggerheads, so much detritus, all victims on the fringe, infinite in
number, definite in end…but are blind to the blood and bone of
life, we barely break the skin and understand nothing.

Images of Blue

The night sky
so black, so blue.
Indigo blue!

A brilliant morning
sky, motes of
clouds of cotton, blue
as the deepest ocean!

Swimming, the crest of
the crashing wave,
evenascent azure deep
in the filtered morning light!

On the bears trail,
you bite into the
sweetest blueberries,
sugar stained fingertips
raised to my lips!

Indigo buntings
empyrean flashes of
captured spring rains,
deepest sky reflections!

Tidal pools, lair of
the Blue of Callinectes,
roaming in search of
menhaden, bluebacks, brilliant
against gray sands!

Peonies, bright
and powder blue,
blooming, life in
a desert of green!

Dusters, spreading
newly formed wings
of aquamarine, dart
across our vision
so many earthbound comets!

Tonight, I smile as the
night sky turns
black, azure, sapphire...
dreaming of ... Blue!

Beach Walk

Under foot,
pleistocene sands,
crushed shells,
prickly feeling.

Waves crash,
vertical wall,
power diminished,
backwash eroding.

Steady wind,
onshore breeze,
refreshing air,
tropical wafting.

Summer sun,
bright and blinding,
tanned skin,
sweat beading.

Wooden carcasses,
silvery gray,
bark stripped oak,
exposed sinking.

Ghost crabs,
movements fleeting,
Jelly fish,
stranded gasping.

Shore birds,
pitter patter,
moving away,
lightly dancing.

Late afternoon,
thunderstorms build,
squall line,
raining cooling.

Under foot,
tomorrow,
not like today,
constantly changing.

Dreams of you...

My arms wrap around you,
tangible reality of longing.
Sweet darling, you have become
the air that I breathe.
You saved me, an oasis in
the middle of this cold world.

Sun rays, lashing my body, as your
fingertips trace lines of fire on my skin.
Our lips brush lightly,
I drink from your well,
a surfeit of pleasure.

Stretching out before me, equatorial,
a horizon with no end...
Your eyes flash lightning as
I dive into the waters flowing
like a spring flood...falling, deeper

and deeper.

We consume each drop of honey
as waves of energy undulate across our universe.
Sudden and complete, we arrive to find our world
no longer gray, as purple and red petals
explode, filling the sky around us.

Let me be the verdurous land you
now plant your dreams in,
you will forever be full of passion,
my well overflowing, providing
your sustenance.

Tumescent hills slowly erode
as I devour you, infinite space all that remains,
we fly into pieces across the darkness,
a shower of entwining stars and auroras
caught in a trellis of love and desire.

Aegean waves bathe us, a warm brine
washing away the worries accreted over time.
Succulent rose, white skin, surprising life.

We fall, knowing the truth, into
each others eyes...our lives never to be the same,
commensal and flourishing

Miles between us, but only a breath away.

One last time....

I will take your phoenix
your rebirth
so full of life
and hold it in my hands
safe and secure.

I will kiss you
with all I am
heaven and hell...
pouring forth from my soul
into your void.

I will pray
that you will accept this gift
consuming what is left of me
...filling your chalice
one final time.

I have bared my soul
my heart is yours
do with it
what you will.

I must go

I love you
nothing else
simply that which is.

Mother Earth

She stands alone, her eyes flashing
motes of lightning and storm
conceived in a fiery continuum of
space, a moment of time.

She creates memories of light and neuron
impulses, a conduit of stars,
defiant of death, encompassing all in her walk,
flower petals a memory of her path.

She offers her body to
renew this damaged world
Licking our wounds, gathering
our corpses, only life
left untouched.

We feel her, never alone, everywhere
seeds on the wind, falling to
decadent bloody soils
renewing life once again.

Seeking respite from the sins
of our acts, from the insanity we have created,
she becomes what we seek, solace and calm
in our time of need to regenerate our
damaged soul.

Energy pours forth from her body,
renewing spring rains, cleansing winds,
soul shaped clouds to lighten our spirit,
gifts to return us to our elemental center,
the core of life.

Where there was once dark and decay
flowers bloom, trees spring, birds sing...
we dance, we celebrate, we live.

We resonate in her breath
her touch in our kiss
her blood in our embrace
her desire in our heart

mars, venus, earth...all one.

Cold

Winter has arrived
gray clouds gather overhead --
toes seek warmth in cold boots.

LIFE - stepping forward into the unknown, growth

The journey on the horizon looms
one never to come to an end.
We step onto this endless line
To look beyond this box we're in.

This line, it curves beyond what we see
our stomachs fill with butterflies.
We remain rooted in this storms lee
seeking shelter in our bed of lies.

The water, it drops from our brow
As we decide to take a step.
We are scared but begin to move, now
As we find strength to start our trip.

The reward is high for those who move
our eyes will finally see.
The streams we find will flow and soothe
our souls, only now, beginning to be.

Cancer

You flew away, a smile, never turning back
the room, cold and stark white

It is here, this room, that I live
trapped in this lonely silence without you

waiting

It is here, this bed, once our canvas...
where the perpetual movement of our atoms
created fire filled moments of time

It is here, this bed, now a barren landscape
but for your curves still etched in the sheets
never to be again.

It is here...where I wait
for you to return
dreams...my only company,
the fragrance of you
lingering in my memory

It is here
that I live
without you.

Progress

Clear, cold water
Brook trout laze in shadows
Chainsaws sound in the forest!

Sitting by a Pennsylvania mountain stream, summer 04.

Memory

A scent of patchouli,
Blood rushes through my veins.
Intoxicating memories of you.

Centering

The poetry of water is best read at dawn and dusk..
It is in these moments of diffuse light
that water sings and dances across your soul..
Lifting you up from your everyday existence!


A moment of repose, relaxing in a plunge pool in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania/New York...summer 04.

Lust

Concuspient smile
Primal urges spiral wildly.
Sweat mingled kiss.

Nights regret

Silence falls heavy against my side,
as a full moon peeks through frost and trees,

mist glazes fallen leaves
as owls speak the nights lament,

A rustling feather, silence,
moving through star light...
searching...

Mornings struggle begins
our awakening reclaims the silence.

Slowly, regrettably,
the night retreats to the shadows
of the suns walk across the day.

In progress...2004, camping, North-Central Pennsylvania Mountains

Weakness

Shadows steal heavens light
Dogs of war drool, snarl, and bite.
Dreams lost forever!

2003, watching families who lost loved ones. This war is a sad commentary for humanity and compassion in the USA.

Time Flys

Family reunion,
Children play, giggle and laugh.
Time quickly marches on.

Thanksgiving, 2003.

Summers past

Isles of my youth
Salty shores, broken shells.
A memory of spring tides.

Sitting on East Beach, St. Simons Island, 2004.

Powerless

Thoughts of you...
consume me

Sinuous curves, stretching,
hips, thighs, smooth as silk

I fall
drowning, insatiable desire

Senses exploding
A zephyr of emotion

The end consumed in fire.

Always thinking of you, far from me, awash in light

Awakening

Amorphous, cold white stone...
Aphrodite seeks release from imprisoned darkness.
Birth, the masters hammer strikes.

Seeking

Wading birds...searching
Tracks left at waters edge.
We walk the same path.

The beach, Summer 04, walking meditation.