Speciosis

Celestial beams warm my sleek surface as I rest

And reflect heavenly races of alabaster vapor.

I do not dream beyond the stern bulrushes,

Content to observe my inhabitants take flight,

For their colorful forms are to be admired

And I am not so unsightly myself, calm, at peace.

But the persistent claw of a brewing storm

Streaks and disrupts my frail exterior

And then the once friendly clouds begin an assault;

And I can only survey my disfigured appearance.

Each cold missile wounds and wrinkles age me,

My cerulean borders pockmarked, all purpose lost.

Yet before I close in murky sinking despair,

A lone figure captures my portrait, respectfully distant,

Astonishing; yet there, in my agony, I am beautiful.

Second Childhood

An incomprehensible blur of faces and colors,

Sounds becoming clearer until they form “words”,

Whole words found and explored with abandon,

New wonders added to build a reality; growing up.

And I lived, wrote my heart onto the pages,

Learned studiously, laughed with my dear friends

And at night in mood beams, dreams soared,

Until normal life was achieved and I sat.

What lurching horror to find my chair gone

And I fell into a swirling void of confusion,

Stripping me down to my fragile core

And I was a child for the second time.

Loss could not bind my heart for long

And stubbornly, I jumped into the new life

To find a joy filled land of tastes and shapes,

So that I grew up well and was blessed.

Warrior

Lead me to the raging waters

In a simple dress of white

To drown the entrapping darkness

And strip my flesh to the bone.

Destroyed by victorious love

And drawn up in fierce fire,

The reflection is mine, yet not,

Truly alive, unafraid of failure

In the face of a daunting army.

Washed by water, fire rested,

So lost that Self is found,

A warrior fighting with love.

Waltz

Shadows reigned in the starscape land

As dreams waltzed sleep into dust

And dared to shine beyond boundaries

Of fear and weary tales of tomorrow.

Against a familiar seeping sorrow, refreshed

Feathers of faith amidst desolate losses

Flexed shyly, then strengthened in waking dawn

To sweep the shards from my broken surface.

Then, beyond the cold restraining glass,

Dark was stripped away and forgotten

As day sharpened and pierced my heart,

And I was free, brighter than the stars.