Apologies

I let love wither,

no water for the tree.

I could have,

- couldn't I?

Easier to think

that it wasn't just me.

And it wasn't, but,

neglect is as painful

as an ax, eventually.

I'm sorry.

Perhaps a scalpel

would have been kinder.

******

I ran off to the promised land

expecting a cactus flower

to bloom, found thorns instead.

I didn't hear her song,

the one she sang for me.

Somehow my mind

was elsewhere,

admiring the walls

or ceilings, I don't know.

******

I'm sorry once again

for the pain I inflicted

I stand convicted,

and the love I found

was taken from my very bed,

sudden, unexpected.

So now I beg

forgiveness,

I promise to water

this new rose that grows

with love and trust

and faith, not tears.

some thoughts on beauty

I hear a flock of crows cry

as they fly above

the Charles Schwab office

in the blackness of

the pre dawn sky.

Invisible from below,

black wings against

the starless black,

is it distress or discovery?

I can not know.

I stop and strain

to see them

but I can't and so

I return my gaze

to what's in front of me;

half a dozen bodies

shrouded in sleeping bags

lined up against the cyclone fence

protecting a construction site

at Main and Howard.

I had been struggling to consider

what beauty means to me,

is it places or faces,

some ineffable harmonies?

I can not know, although,

there are landscapes

that slow my heart

and a face that quickens it,

can the cries of hidden crows

fit somehow within it?

What of the men

and women hidden

in their sidewalk slumber,

what fills their hearts

with joy instead of sorrow?