WHAT SHARON THINKS

WHAT SHARON THINKS


In a passing
conversation
about writing,
a poet friend
said she thinks
metaphors are
scary - such as,
“water is blood.”


I don’t want
one thing to be
another thing,
she argued.


Yet, she made
it clear that she
is keen on similes,
explaining - with
a grand gesture
of her hand,
“life is a simile.”


…Is it me?

THE EXTENT OF THINGS

THE EXTENT OF THINGS


here’s what
brought us to this -


that cold steel
that sought me out
and blood and bone
I suffered alone…


you kept vigil over me
in my troubled times
on the mountain
and you let me see
your beating heart,
however faint


your voice behind me
in a hush of love,
assuring me of eternity


and youth – transitory,
like any other thing
that is here for a
moment and gone,
was hidden away
under old forest trees
where the only light
shone from our eyes


one sweet day
after another
sweet day,
each longer
than a year,
and that special
grace holding off
imminent sadness


how many nights
did we confess our
sins but were never
absolved
we never needed
forgiveness
I know that now


we put our
heads together
and changed
the universe -


stars from
different galaxies
exploding into
a billion shards -
still traveling
through a dark

and endless space.

INDICATIONS

INDICATIONS


Breath is holding form now,
as the promise of sleep whispers
seductively in the cold fields.


Up on the hill, the wild pears
hide crystals of ice inside
their sweet white flesh -
as tendrils of pumpkin vines
lie in dark and delicate rot.


And weeds, that so carefully
multiplied themselves
in the heat, now shiver boney
and brown in the wind -
their rustling, a death rattle.


At the edge of the field,
high, in the interlaced
branches of a walnut tree,
a plague of gregarious grackles
marshal themselves.


They scold me - and scream
their disapproval of my
aimless wanderings.

Richer Than Croesus

Leaves,
like gold coins
and red jewels,
tumble down
from the
treetops
and pile up
at our feet -
making us
richer than
Croesus.