silver night

silver night

wings in flight

unseen rise past

death’s dim sight

to the perfect light

of paradise!

I've Never Been out to Sea

I've never been out to sea

though I've touched iridescent waves, 

flown over blue surf 

and played in safe, familiar bays

with dog-eyed seals and

wondering whales.

But gazing, just as the sun 

juts beyond night's edge, 

I see this curving ball, endless

band of water held close

to jealous core by clear bands

of gravity, hurtling 

through the void,

Human eyes, wrapped in 

spheres of bone and blood, 

follow earth's trajectory just

ahead of the season, bask in

the coming summer sun as it 

heats blue waters, casts high

bright towers of

cumulonimbus;

for I am a child of the sea,

and I can see out far

and in deep.

Cherry Blossoms on Palm Sunday

Windy day,
undulant sun
floods smooth cut of lawn

as cherry blossoms race
and lightly fall upon
my upturned face.

O, Sacrificial Tree!
your bright glory cast
to the clamant breeze and
let fill your boughs
with ordinary green.

Towards 280 (after Wayne Thiebaud)

Vibrant canvas, undulant colors

thin lines of thick paint

streaking white fields

of bright California light.

The blue road plummets

into wider boulevards.

Down steep freeways

over shadowed s-curves

the black cars streak.

Past the pink condo

rising high along the blacktop,

its thrusting blue shadow slicing

the indurate road,

they drive down bright 280

past creamy waves of warehouse

through fields of pale gold,

where at last they converge

on the incipient, blue

bay. 

Author's Note: 

Painting: Wayne Thiebaud, Towards 280, 1999-2000,

acrylic on canvas, 54 x 60 inches.

Courtesy: LeBaron's Fine Art, Sacramento, CA