I Do
If I could walk among your shadows,
but I can’t.
If I could but know your footsteps in your trail,
instead I am lost.
I read your final letters to catch insights from you,
I am left with questions.
I look through your archways of cover words,
I no longer feel protected.
I barefoot my thoughts onto the cold marble of time,
and morose sensations are all I feel.
No one asks permission to enter our lives,
or permits death in order to leave.
It just all is, and you are certainly gone,
you said in time no one would remember,
I do.
Dedicated to a friend who lost his battle with cancer.
© CMM 2011
Wet Lands
The fiddler crab reached from under,
while grass grew from standing water.
Trees a century old hang over,
just off from dry Civil War mortar …
The quiet fields now left remain
and bridges cross to link the past…
Seagulls just off the ocean’s break,
haunts the memories that will last.
May we have a gentler time
and never to return to cause such grief;
I walk on through the battle field,
to return back from the sun’s relief.
Copyrighted: CMM 2011
All rights reserved; photos
Together
Fireworks
sky lights in the night
colors of red, white and blue,
friends of a lifetime me; you.
copyrighted: CMM 2011
Life of the Sea
Rushing
towards me in rhythm
pushing, pulling in tides
of undertow and strong currents.
I rest, for the tides of my soul
are brought into the life of the sea.
Copyrighted: CMM 2011
Twilight’s Run
The sparrow’s flight seems still against the wind,
as the buzzard’s wings-span soars in the skies that have no end.
Evening draws its shade of cool indigo among the grays,
the shuffling sounds my feet are paced in a cadence sway.
I struggle against the pull as up hill one foot in front of the lead,
knowing at the top I will breathe easier from the need.
A momentous time this lone and silence evening’s best,
without noise a red tail hawk seen on her nest.
Sun’s warm cast has faded into a twilight’s glow,
while in the course and across the ridge I still have miles to go.
Labored breath I listen, as though it is outside of me,
I glance, the late summer leaves shadows line the trees.
I continue on as miles left behind darken without sun,
appearing at the early twilight , the journey will soon be done.
Chilled with damp t-shirt and brackish coated skin,
I know the feeling only runners feel, when the distance soon will end.
© CMM 2013
The Book
I picked up your book,
left behind as a gift.
I thought how nice.
Now you have left,
and I think so nice I have the book .
I have the letter you wrote with such eloquent words,
full of philosophy and reason.
Now you are gone and the reason seems mute,
and the philosophy unfulfilled.
Combing my fingers over the checkmarks,
bringing me to attention to the tributes
you made to me, and us, and our friendship.
I feel you presence pour inside of me
and I know.
There is no book, no letter of reason,
no quote of philosophical works
that replace your having died without reason.
© CMM 2013
Evening Tomb
Smoked-filled room chokes the senses,
tenant’s visits heightens defenses.
tenant’s visits heightens defenses.
Buried emotions, snuffed stale air,
vacant expressions with sunken stares.
All who come to the evening tomb,
cloud their lives within the room.
Clinking of glasses the flame of the lighter,
two strangers meet, become one-niters.
Reaching from trust now failed,
hopes wrapped up now kept and jailed.
Speaking present, the buried past,
masking in drinks, in hopes it will last.
Long enough to help forget,
strangers, soon lovers, talk and sit.
She now with her tinted hair light,
sits as he listens throughout the night.
Each one look for the night of need,
knowing dawn their guilt will breed.
A different loss, a hollow space,
another night to seek; erase.
Copyright: 2000 CMM
Summer Smiles
Deeper and deeper I break blacken crumbles of packed soil.
Closer and closer the earth warms wiggle in welcome,
bringing a hallow depth of wet disrupted places.
Spring’s garden now silent from the sun,
now further into the soil given way.
There are welcomes new beginnings
from the yellow petals
the sprouting
smiles
the
Daisy.
Copyrighted: 2009 CMM/ photo 2000 CMM
Eagle and Child Inkling 