the old ones.

these grainy tactile films take contact
pull it into your sight and sing it out
it plays without triteness or fickle guile
the people are commiserative, flawed and bright
and as they flicker by, they are winning,
without nostalgia or irony.

'plot for days' she comments
smirking at this line or that
the dialogue is tense, or sometimes far fetched
but its exactly what fits, and it does
the particular oldness of it, the forgotten wit
and even the new talkies owe them heaps of craft and gold.

Moon Bathing

Our bright orb lolls in the quiescent sections of the sky
between patrolling clouds it hovers
casting a soothing reflection down on the ripe glassy surface of the lake.
Its after midnight but our tanned summer bodies bob in pale luminescence.
The bustle and chop of the summer lake is calm now, and we drink it in in all of its subtly.
We play games and splash the warm water, but we are here for the moon
its mysterious radiance, its transformational force.

The still waters stretch out in front of us as the moon breathes its light.
The velvet of northwoods waters in August laps our skin, mild and silky,
and we gaze at the enormous face, the full moon's patterns of shade.
Maybe the lunar gaze is just the noon Sun's reflection,
a celestial mirror, angled into our atmosphere once a month
but here in this water, I feel its pull, the lightness of my limbs.
surely its touch is singular when moon bathing on Moon Lake.

Cursive turns.

Cursive comes close,
it almost describes it.
Rather it is the mode,
the rotation of its characters.
That is, how it rotates,
cursive closely imitates.

But the comparison is flawed,
a subtle yet essential distinction.
Cursive letters loop and close,
their paths calibrated, ileal.
My curves are different,
they're untraceable, capricious, luminous.

So my soul's turns are unique.
But for now the pen tip's flourish
must suffice.

Cloud Cult.

beckoned to fall swiftly
leaning over rails and bridges
clouds drift in sequence
they desire my form
and I theirs
I stand on the edge
requesting a swap
they all agree
they prefer to remain anonymous and plural
which is just fine with me
I prefer anonymity as well
who wants to be a cloud if anyone knows you?
It's best to float by without notice
casting shadows and rain
watching tiny people
hastily, frenetically try to cope
with the burdens of earth-life
surely I'm a citizen of Earth myself
only my world is miles above pain
above confusion and enmity and coarseness
I am no longer a coarse being
my molecules are more a loose association
clinging water, lighter than air
brushing by mountains, amazonian treetops
I swell as I sweep across still lakes and rivers
my form is now bloated, my shade is now gray
as winds whip me upwards
I feel fit to burst
a thunderclap, and I fall apart
millions of fragments flung downward
gravity's urgings have won out
endless sensation as I plink on a pond
I splash against branches and dribble down leaves
I wash across playgrounds, swingsets and schools
and as I strike the soft sweet earth
I feel at home, my cycle is complete

Circus Love Triangle

The fiddle player dreams
of a cartwheeling bandit
his rolls and turns are strong and graceful
her light hands hold with tenderness close
the steel strings, the new bow, a gift of affection
the gossamer sparks, a web of light splayed
as the small rapid fingers
are dancing in rays
as the evening sun lingers
she pines as she plays.

Her meek bright heart shutters
as chin clasps violin
a glint in her eye, as she watches him soar
the strongman's advances intense and denied
a circus love triangle, her fiddle their pace
but her one true love can with such ease turn a wheel
a flip-twisting full tuck
as she plays, his soul tilts
his tight landing stuck
as her dulcet tone lilts.

Trees of Grim Designs

Trees resound hollowly, secrets passed by leaf
echoing splinters through soft earth
twine-like roots entangled, entombed in the deep
woody overgrowth contrives
dimly plotting against man and bear
whispers chatter, needles and twigs with wind-like designs
bare clattering branches, bones of transmission
the brook and the birch,
the boulder and pine,
conspirators all,
allies in crime.
Preemptively seeking maligned machinations
tangling trippingly devious root, a loop for a boot
a steep crumbling trail, rutted from rain
a tumble a gasp a thump and a crack
and warm sticky fluid, life-giving solution
staining the boulder, droplets plinking the brook
but murderous trees have consciences too
the noble pine broke the fall, and it's sap sacrificed
the trees aim at ending, but save a man's life.

Seasoned Rivals

The bitter rivals sling desperate barbs of malignancy, tea grey teeth gnashed and bared in acute hostility. The rubber endcaps, vilely yellowed and brittle from age and use dreadfully slide across the brown linoleum as the two adversaries advance toward one another. From the unsettling clink of a rusted walker to the muffled rustling of depends on crisp grey slacks held up with brass clasped suspenders, the stage is set for a brutal geriatric clash in the Main Leisure Area of Hyland Nursing Home. Sporting freshly fitted and glued dentures, hugely thick and widely framed glasses, a darkly stained oak cane and fresh depends, with two tours as a marine in Korea under his considerable belt is Walter Drubner, slouched and metronomically thumping his cane. On the other side of the ring now formed by most of the cognizant residents of Hyland is Charles Brainard, the (relatively) young challenger, vigorously shaking and swinging his walker. They continue to toss insults about, one asserting the other is a "weembly commie-loving fairyboy" countered merely with a tart "drool-monkey". The name-calling is fairly ridiculous and rife with outdated words but cussing is frowned upon at Hyland and the intentions are real and are spit vindictively. No one laughs, murmurs circle and fade. A wisecracker towards the back offers bets. They stop with a few inches separating their tumid red noses, Charles's walker is now carelessly cast off to the side, and they take turns clenching fists and leaning in towards one another. Crusty nostrils flare and thin pallid lips twitch and sneer. Far off, the clatter of a dropped bedpan can be heard. Someone coughs. "Why don't you go back to your namby pamby sewing circle, Chuck", Walter growls, raising his meaty forearm, complete with green crinkely tattoos. Just then, the kindly young nurse steps in, and both wrinkled necks turn. "It's bingo time everyone--oh, and Mr. Drubner your family is here." "You lucked out this time" Walter mutters as he turns on his cane and walks towards the door. Charles picks up his walker and sticks his tongue out to Walter's turned back. "We'll see who lucked out tomorrow Drubner."
The End.

Welcome To Ypsi

Two friends from Eastern Michigan University and I hop a bus to Ypsilanti, the ghetto sister city to Ann Arbor and a quiet gangly fellow sits down on the stop after ours. His hair is crispy and blond, as though its been abused by a hairdryer and is about neck length. It shoots out from his head, floating raggedly above his creased and weather beaten neck. The skin on his hands and face is tight, leathery, and deeply tanned. Probably about 36, he looks over 50 and has ghastly bony fingers. A vein stands out visibly on his temple and throbs, sliding over the bone as he turns his withered head side to side. His whole body seems to have been left out in the sun too long. His face looks like that of a gaunt, wide-eyed Clint Eastwood. I glance at his wild and bulging winter-blue eyes and notice a burst blood vessel in the right one. As he sits languidly across from me on the number four bus, arms stretched across the backs of seats, eying the driver and my collegiate looking friends and me, he is clutching a pair of metal handcuffs. They don't look like the fake handcuffs that come with policeman Halloween costumes and they're certainly not fuzzy. They look like cop handcuffs, real ones, the chain silver and the cuffs painted dull black. He is holding them in a manner that suggests the attitude "Yeah these are handcuffs, so what?" He has a cheap ring on every finger and wears a dirty leather jacket. The jacket is black and stained all over and he has an ugly plaid polyester vest over it. He sits shiftlessly towards the front of the bus and no one sits next to him. His expression is blank in the way a serial killer's is and he mainly stares towards the front of the bus, occasionally switching the handcuffs from hand to hand, making no effort to hide them. He glances at us again, we whisper to one another, and he more than likely knows we're talking about him. My friend feigns sending a text message to snap a picture of this creepy loner holding handcuffs and I begin to wonder what his story is. The first thing I imagine is an image of him pushed against a car, being handcuffed by a police officer when suddenly he takes the officer down, brutally beating him and making a run for it. Subsequent images are variations on this including a gun fight, knife fight, unbelievable karate moves, various shanking scenarios, and a car chase. I grip the metal water bottle in my hand and wonder what the best way to wield it against a dangerous street person with handcuffs might be. When he slowly sinks his hand into his jacket my knuckles go white and I tense up all over. His hand emerges holding a liter bottle of coke, apparently very well hidden in the folds of his dirty jacket. He just holds the bottle in one hand, the handcuffs in the other and continues to glance around menacingly. He gets off several stops before us and as he walks away I see hanging from his black jeans a chain with dozens of colored hair ties looped through it. The second he is gone my friends and I confer about the strangness of this person. One friend points out that he has seen him before, riding a bike and wearing women's underwear, he is a hustler or crossdresser my friend speculates, and probably a drug addict I add. This seems as likely as any explanation and we theorize about this grungy misanthropic deviant and why he was holding handcuffs until we reach our stop. Now his story's changed in my mind and rather than a highly dangerous felon he is a hustler junkie with a handcuff fetish. "Welcome to Ypsilanti!" my friend says ironically. I just smile and wonder at our public transit system.

Where The Snows Fall, When The Tree's Hauled

Where The Snows Fall, When The Tree's Hauled

Candy canes dangle
reflected in brightly mirrored
red and green orbs
lights that blink
lights that bubble
a lucky pickle
a hidden witch
a harp and a trumpet
a dozen or so stuffed Santas
piled in a chair
the Santas sing carols
another few dangle
some skiing
some sledding
white bears that drink coke
green needles arrayed
cross red velvet skirt
they've fallen, more cling
a small glittered tree
my picture in the center
its from second grade
an angel or star scrapes the ceiling
its the tops and looks good
it smells like sugar cookies
their shape, wreathes and trees
but moreso its pine
its woody and fresh
its Christmas
and I'm home.

It's Not My Nightmare

I breathe hard in my head,
my eyes and nose
stuttered syllables
dribbling on my lips
myself is conscious
of me and my words
I feel a thousand eyes
trained on myself and me
and we're now
apparently up.
Scooting to the podium
fear-tinged sweat pervades
they can smell it it seems
my legs shake, knees knock
fingers tremble, toes tap
muscles twitch
and I am awkward.
A large and disgruntled
bug begins to crawl
up my throat
its twelve limbs are long
its thorax fuzzy
and I choke on it
"The primary function
of the ulgk---"
vomit
in my mouth, not out
I swallow hard and
futilely try to mime normal
but its not near normal.
the bug is now unhappy
extremely pissed in fact
its made me gag.
I feel the eyes
not pity or empathy
they judge and
judge and laugh
and judge and
mock and hate
cruel and heavy
they press down
forced oration breeds
this discomfort in spades
hearts and clubs
where are my notes
where is my deliverance
how do I go on
eyes wander
and it seems for now
they've given up their mean games
its lost its fun and now
everyone feels the hailstorm
of my humiliation
its dampened their bloodlust
no more patience
and I walk off
dead inside
mortified
but relieved
and this sick dream
is over.

The Walden of My Youth.

In the early days of my rambunctious and unrefined adolescence I often took to wandering through the ancient pine forest behind my family's hideaway cabin. The cabin itself was rustic and beautiful, picturesque even, a page from a northwoods memoir, and as inspiring a natural retreat as one is likely to find in the UP of Michigan. It possessed such a humbling beauty that my city-bounded aunts would often visit with us to relax and take in the calm and wilderness. As we drove back on winding, heavily shaded gravel roads, I often felt as if I were driving into a different world, more quiet and majestic then ours, and its dusty antiquated charm whispered of long nights reading near the black pot-bellied stove and serene Autumn walks on miles of trails and abandoned country roads. As we drove past the gate and onto our property the first thing in sight was The Barn, which housed a variety of old watercraft and its second floor served as a simple guest house. It was red, inherently dirty, and filled with mice. The cabin was a bit dirty and had mice as well, but somehow its coziness and enchanted air more than made up for the dust and regularly placed mousetraps. More than anything, the magical feeling came from the cabin's characteristic oldness. The faintly marred hardwood floors with so much character you could write a short volume about the generations of scratches, the peculiar stone sign that read 'Gandalf', left behind by the eccentric and Tolkien-obsessed original owner. The old-fashioned cloth napkins, bedsheets, throw blankets, comforters, towels and any other fabric you might find that radiated with this oldness but a sort of venerated and well-loved oldness. These things possesed a quality that deeply immersed you into the feeling of living in a history museum or a carefully weaved historical novel set in a peaceful cottage. Behind the cabin, running alongside the unperturbed lake and deep into the wilds was The Sylvania. The magic and primitive forest of my youth. The enormously tall and widely spaced trees gave a cavernous feeling to the forest. Huge aged trees bear down from all sides, blotting out the Sun and leaving in her place foreboding shades of gray and green. Its huge hushed openness and low light echoed the atmosphere of an abandoned cathedral. The ground was thickly piled with brittle orange needles that offered a stealthily muffled crunch. Actual living trees were relatively rare and always massive. The darkened forest floor was riddled with ancient fallen trees, slowly rotting at acute angles and covered in moss and fungus. One of the more ominous aspects: this forest seemed devoid of fauna. We rarely saw the ubiquitous whitetails that populate every forest and roadside in the UP and even seldom saw a squirrel. This reinforced the solitude and mystery of the forest. I think the man who built our cabin understood it, and I don't wonder that a reader of Tolkien would choose to settle here. The Sylvania feels like an enchanted forest in Middle Earth. And so I spent many hours ranging around in The Mystical Sylvania, and it became familiar to me. I played games and explored endlessly, wandering often and looking for animals. I had names for certain areas and odd tree phenomena. The bouncing log, the climbing tree, the deep bog, little hill, they were landmarks to show off to cousins and visiting friends but also important signposts in the labyrinthine Sylvania. We camped in the forest, but always within sight of the cabin, to go deeper at night was to risk the wolves we heard late at night.

The Levee may have been breeched.

Incurious politicians and poorly translated ad messages, flip flip flip, university pages on literary reviews and writers forums, flip flip flip, my needle rooting through riffraff, pining for true muse, flip flip flip, he lives inside of his own heart, that's an awful big place for a boy to live in -Billy Bob Thorton in Sling Blade, flip flip flip, Dr. Strangelove's nazi-mania and General Ripper's paranoia, flip flip flip, my own recognition that its not damn deep enough, flip flip flip, my own recognition that despite the typical comparison of the human mind to a computer, mine is functioning more like a rolodex, flip flip flip, random anecdotes from Herodotus, flip flip flip, and still I can't pierce my own mind's crust of sundry pop culture data, flip flip flip, Andrew Bird, professional whistler, deeper dammit, flip flip flip, I begin to feel it flow.... I've struck the vein I was probing, and I feel its warm gush. The fluid of inspiration isn't deep red like spilled blood or even purple like my coursing veins, it's electric and golden, specks of robin's egg blue, occasional streaks of tangerine and bubblegum pink, and at times like this, when it is fresh and splashes out of me, it seems to radiate, like plutonium or something, so that I can perceive the outline of it flowing from my chest and pooling on my desk even with my eyes shut tightly.
Tunesmith:
zoomed by tertiary roadblocks
rumbling scraping cast-iron constructions
Heat blasts from the grill
sturdy orange plastics shred
as cyclical steel zips and shears
control is failing and paint chips vilely
the wheel off the road bouncing wildly
and spins away
the pilot wails, fear in his guts
the carriage of new
wrecked and smoldering
still,
but the devil's breath is close.

Crackling spite,
rageful tunings of
well-defined wrath.
Swaying in and out of
catalogued outrages,
crack, crack,
and steam whistles
from red swollen ears.
Despotic ruinous ire,
how swelling ego binds
its master's fate
to its odious will.
Carried to undying hatred
on the backs of bitter beasts
sick coats green with envy
hooves of thieves' gold
eyes that tighten your throat
with greedy malevolence
Why mount these damned
creatures and ride to Oblivion?
They rob that which is good
and defines essence
offering cold vengance
and emptiness
in return.
Don't buy in
live your life
let not this blackness
touch your soul.

An Undeniable Failure.

Gray and hidden passion slips into my eyes, haziness defines my vision and crude blindness becomes me. I stare without discretion and my pupils must be huge by now. Trembling hands reach for the tin of mints in my pocket, something to distract me. As my chest pounds and my toe taps relentlessly, I suddenly realize where I am. I look up and see my thin, oily math teacher, the frame of her sharp, chic glasses being gently adjusted as she looks around the drab collegiate classroom. Shes Italian and willowy, with moderate olive skin, and I used to think she was alright. She has the sort of artless charm that comes from imperfect English and which is best paired with the inane quality of always sounding kind of funny. Now that I was doomed to fail her class, quite pettily I thought to myself, I truly hated her. I set my pencil down and cracked my knuckles nervously, glancing to either side. The guy next to me seemed to be at least as skittish as me. A scruffy geek with a beard and awkwardly proportioned limbs sits behind me, exclaiming his ire over this wretched exam out loud, "Well what tha--", he mutters. He is the insufferable jerk in class that constantly raises his hand to ask worthless and hateful questions and thinks himself rather clever for it. He typically makes a point to express out loud to no one in particular the score on his homework when it is handed back, most often in a faintly disdainful and snobbish tone, something like "Oh wow, I got a 37. Much better than I expected." As petty as it is, I hate him for it. But even hearing this snide billygoat of a kid audibly struggle cannot divert my senses from the dread and panic before me. The loathsome stack of papers laid messily in front of me, my futile attempts scrawled on each page, front and back, solely filling space. This test will be my undoing. I work to the bitter end and pass in my packet limply, my spirit broken and my will crushed by calculus.

It's a Wonderful (Really) Life.

Freed from parents and old friends alike,
without obligation or well-defined purpose,
thus we dully bob and drift through our best years.

Our broad preconceptions neatly packed away,
never to be seen again, along with old prejudices and strong-founded convictions.
A preponderance of complex thought and a paucity of simple context
the open mind expands further, it's seam stretched and strained
exposing young naive tissue, unperturbed by startling absurdity and paradox
more and more data's drawn in, too much to sort and compile
an overflowing bin of recycled ideas, each useless and indiscernible.

We are flung from the neat platform of adolescence, never looking back,
alas our descent is parachuted, its thrill stunted,
we drift awkwardly into our new existence, and there is no sink or swim,
no moment of powerfully executed self-preservation.
As misinformed and falsely reassured children we gently drift
on an endless and arctic pool of doubt and apprehension
alone in all things, but together in helplessness
our feet straining for the bottom
our arms outstretched, reaching for a ledge to grasp.

The lame black tube around our waist keeps our chest and head dry,
no real contact, the full shock of the freezing water denied to us.
How I wish I could plunge deep
freed from my acrid black inner-tube, my obnoxious and repulsive lifesaver
to feel the icy rush of desperately cold water all around me
to look in all directions and see naught but darkly blue
to shake my fist at it or to gradually perceive it
to face the dark abyss alone
and alone I might find myself.

summer adventures 1.

Vaguely felt rain drops drift across my face and into my eyes as I stare up the steep and foreboding path. A precipitous ledge bounds the path to my right and a rather uninviting and roughly sloping wooded plane that gives way to another precipitous ledge after about 30 yards lies to the left. I'm crouched under a small poplar, trying to protect my ipod from the rain and to decide the best course of action. My sister's purple mountain bike is a few feet away and my socks are now soaked, causing an wretchedly unpleasant squash each time I readjust my footing. I resolve to shove my ipod into my pocket and swing my leg over the high frame of the purple mountain bike and gut it out. It had begun to drizzle lightly as I started my ascent of this narrow rocky path that runs around the back of our property, up between two massive mine pits, one half full of water and the other dry and empty. About halfway up the path, nearly a half-mile from relative safety and the wide gravel roads that lead to my house, the rain decides to come down properly. Huge droplets hurtle down onto my shoulders and head in rapid succession. It feels like putting my upper body under a high-pressure shower head and I'm soaked under a minute later. My primary concern is my ipod, which seemed like a reasonable thing to bring on a short mountain biking excursion on a brilliantly warm and sunny day. But of course this life cannot (nor do I wish it to) be as simple as a short bike ride on a sunny day and so, after a brief respite under a pitifully stunted poplar, I pushed on, up the muddy and boulder-strewn ramp dripping with cooling rain and breathing heavily.

a Poem.

An immense bloody-orange sun lolling above the jagged horizon in early dusk,
Rocky storm-swept lighthouses swinging glowing rays through dense fog,
A colossal steel cross of light topping a broad limestone dome of earth,
Fading parallel lines of steady luminescence guiding in bold pilots,
Red and orange streaks of cloud set brazenly against purple sky and fading sun,
Quietly blinking antennae of red and green jutting from faraway hills on still nights,
Pristine glass lake water shimmering in the new dawn's first light,
Rare and elegant bright-white flowers clinging to a branch,
Softly illuminated by beams of focused, forest-sifted light,
Wide blue mountains looming suddenly, ranging hugely on each side,
Precipitous ledges giving way to wondrous panoramic sketches of terrain,
A Dazzling noon sun partially eclipsed by ponderous towers of billowy white,
Natural, striking and idyllic, these moments steal our words and breath,
organically invoking still moments of unity and contemplation.

There is a slight chance of Autumn in the air.

I'm distressingly undecided in regards to my feelings about the impending Autumn. Surely its already Autumn, but strictly in an official way that really has no relation to when Autumn really starts. When leaves are slowly drained of their green lifeblood, their chlorophyll, and fall to the ground dead and brittle and snap and crackle under your shoes and bike tires and cover sidewalks and fill gutters and blanket the strips of grass between the sidewalk and road and pile up at crosswalks and get wet and bunch together when the comparatively cold rains of early Autumn (compared to Summer rains) bleakly seep down from when you wake up until after you go to sleep and the sky has a wrinkly pallid-gray sheet thrown across it, and you wonder if the Sun minds this billowy impediment and you feel bad for the Sun because its been far too long since you've seen her, and she feels bad for you and its been far too long since she's shined down on you, and so but suddenly you miss Summer and the hot days and cool pond water and far too short canoe trips and extremely lengthy but somehow inexplicably never dull picnics and chilly nights in tree forts (but not as chilly as you are now) and more than anything you miss the Sun and how brightly she shined, and how everyday you could wake up and not even have to check and know that she would be there to shine, waiting patiently outside your window and how now, in the Autumn you can see the Sun but somehow, our swiftly tilting planet has aligned itself in such a way that the Sun in all her Glory is too far to be felt and now she fades away because Winter is coming, and Autumn is so hard to enjoy, nearly impossible to enjoy, even on freakishly nice spring-like days like today, because you know with each passing moment you're drawing closer to Winter and that days grow shorter and much sooner than you expected or had hoped to expect the ground freezes and you start to wear boots everywhere and hats and mittens and the wrinkled gray sheet comes back for good and then snow falls and accumulates and eventually is heaped into great piles by filthy orange trucks that also fling salt and dirt everywhere, and cars without four-wheel drive become obsolete and sit idly and are covered by feet of crushing snow, and little old ladies can't leave their houses, and tired old men trudge up and down their driveways alone with red plastic shovels placing their hands on their aching backs, and so suddenly in the depth of this isolating and depressing winter you happen to be plodding through the snow on an incredibly clear day, seeing typically depressing winter scenarios play out, and all of the sudden you see the Sun and she's shining happily and you realize she's been there all along and really misses you and can't wait until Summer but wants you to be happy in the Autumn and the Winter and that even if you can't see her she is still there and tells you so by winking ever so slightly and you understand why and you are suddenly happy even as the snow falls and cold wind blows and it takes longer then you might expect but eventually the snow melts a bit, then comes back, but then more melts this time and the ice on lakes begins to thaw and the first green thing you see in the ground makes your heart leap and birds fly back North and land on the thawing lakes and you greet them as they distractedly float past you, and small furry creatures pop out of holes in the ground and in trees and search for nuts and seeds, and you see a robin, and before you know it green things are everywhere and the Sun has returned and you greet her, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, because even though its 45 degrees its Spring and you are happy. So, all in all, I think Autumn is a pretty alright season and I welcome it and I will try not to complain about it or Winter too much as long as they promise to eventually yield to Spring and Summer.

A Tiny Slice Of Life.

The sky was clear on an early icy December morning and the moon lounged eerily above the horizon at 7:40 in the morning, a great pale abomination, threatening the sun for celestial superiority.  The air seemed so cold and dry that it might crack and fall to the road if I yelled loudly through it.  Without wind, the air cut at my nostrils and seared by bleary blue eyes as I walked the long uphill block to The Hill.  When the wind blew, it tore easily through My Blue Fleece Jacket, hood up with my mitted hands deep in the pockets and my arms pressed tightly to my small ten year old body.  I was fascinated by how the air could singe my lungs with its crisp chill.  I took a deep breath and coughed immediately.  I reached the intersection of the road I took to school and The Hill, usually criss-crossed with dozens of sledding paths in Winter, it looked patchy and bald, like the face of an old white-haired man that couldn't grow a proper beard.  The snow had come slowly this year and we had had a few late-autumn thaws.  I began the slow ascent of the hill alone, and climbed eagerly, avoiding the great soft drifts, mostly plodding a path through the shallow crunchy crust of snow that was left from the warming days of the previous week.  I reached the summit of The Hill and looked out one way onto the expansive playground, scanning between the swings and The Bug, and found a congregation of kids near The Wall that looked like my friends.  I had time before I had to flow into the flat brick single-story school with a herd of my classmates, sit at My Desk and listen for the bell to start my school day.  I stood and looked, just at the crest of The Hill and peered off down The Hill and beyond.  To my right was Old Jack's Forest, which I had spent the summer learning the mysteries of.  I was no longer afraid to walk through that dense stand of trees, cluttered with odd junk and home to two old eccentric twin brothers.  The Forest climbed up and bordered The Hill on the side closest to my house.  I looked out farther, to the horizon, at the strange ashen moon and wondered why it lingered so long on this crisp calm morning.  As I stared and pondered, I felt the darkly-chilling wind blow over my face and sensed the cold flood deep into my frail chest.  I shivered deeply, and decided to join my friends behind the windbreak of The Wall, the hollow moon's ominous presence lost on me.

Rise.

A small white feather lofts idly into a perfect red-orange sunset, urged on by warm winds, up and up and up it floats into the atmosphere, kissing the sun goodnight and dancing with the northern lights, laying with the moon, adored by the stars, so are we, always rising.  We ebb and flow like the blue sea herself, like all things that are natural and right, but I feel that our tide rises always a shade more than she falls, so soon we will go forth to kiss the sun and lay with the moon, and if the night is right, we can dance among the northern lights too, and the stars will admire how we shine.

I am entertained.

As potential for knowledge emanates

from this institute in its opening stage,

so the multitude of raindrops plummet

on this first shower of the semester.

Sweetly strummed and calmly crooned 

I hum and float along to sweet melodies

her face in my mind's eye, now fading

as I fall asleep to the song we sing together

Calm dark walks on abandoned roads

trees with needles and cool clean sheets

smiles and hugs and up the stairs

perfect evenings on the couch

huge dense forests at every turn

schools with friends and lakes to see

I miss these things, do they miss me ?

Like great works, deep feelings always mean more than they are conscious of saying.

-Camus