Three Poems

Here are three poems I wrote yesterday:

The Forest Sleeps

In the heat of midday
when the chirping of cicadas
drones on and on
and the field, ripe with golden wheat
shimmers with heat waves
the forest sleeps.

But when the sun sinks slowly out of the sky
and the doleful call of the mourning dove rises and fades,
rises and fades
and the crickets play sweet music
for all to hear
and the deer frolic under the trees'
bent boughs,
and the willow
sways calmly in the gentle breeze
it is filled with life.

And in the early morning light
the crickets stop their song
and the deer recede back into
the thickets
and the chickadees chirp for joy
because a new day has begun.


Murder in the Palace

Gilded crimson
velvety cloak
flutters slowly to the ground.

Blood, red as the fabric itself,
pools on the floor.

The assassin, with his
knife
clenched between his teeth,
slips quietly out
the window
just as
the royal guards
come rushing into
the queen's chambers.


Starwalkers

There are three
who walk
the endless path of the stars
on icy nights when the cold
freezes off the toes
of the homeless man,
on sultry nights,
when couples
sit on their porches
and gaze out into the heavens,
and on rainy nights,
when the stray dog
shelters under a soggy cardboard box.

First, there is the girl,
young though she may seem,
her eyes show wisdom
beyond her years
and her feet are worn from treading paths
even the oldest man on Earth
has yet to touch.

Second, there is the cat,
wild though it may seem,
its breath is the wind,
wild, fierce, and free
and the ground upon which it walks
glows with silvery molten light.

Third, there is the elder,
old though he may seem,
his cane
is the trunk
of the tallest redwood tree
and his cloak
is the wing
of the prettiest
nightingale.

Together,
the girl, Time,
and the cat, Earth,
and the elder, Life
maintain the intricate balance
of the world as we know it.

When they finally
fade away
into the distance
and the earth
slows
and the life
withers
and the time
stops