You wake,
Startled by the sky,
Wonder if-as senses
Implode-

A flash of Awareness
Can carry Infinity
And be gone.

We crumble ash,
Still warm,
Between our fingers-
Bonfire of some
Extinct Star.

We sleep-
Holding hands,
Cool ash trickling
Between our fingers-

Nothingness pie
Held together
Sheer with inertia-

Unstuck by
Suffering entropy
Anyway.

We wake,
Startled by earth,
Supporting
Overwhelming weight

Of dreams

Today
Older than puny
Time

I laugh in the
Face of the gods

Who made you ashamed
Of your nakedness?

And why?

Toe-nail clippings fossilize
As they fall

Stone-set by rise and
Evaporation of a
Million Seas

Water becomes you.

Cold lake fed by small insistent falls
High in Cretan mountains.

No Goddess, you,
Young Woman
Vibrant
Fleshy and real

As scale and gill
Animate your kick,
Your stroke, water
Laughing in your movement.

I stare
Narcissus fractured in
Your ripples,

Ek-stasis
Solitary bubble burst.

No fear of Minotaur-
Our innocent frolic
Protects

dark small cloud dropped rain.
still, the small birds sing

Things on hold
Bleeding in and the
flowers of surgery are
wilting  

Waiting is sand spreading
on the ground, slippery
and ever widening

My
determination is
rippled.

Morning is thwarted.

I am unmouthed.

Today is

unwritten.



Caroline Shank
5.6.24

stone angels and crosses,
myrtle leaves and a wreath of roses.

i have built relationships
among the tombstones
and beneath dirt
silent voices shout

time is quicksand!

so, climb a mountain,
swim the sea,
jump into the fire,
walk the high wire,
stumble on

be free.

the softness of her hand in my hand.
her humming to a song
and a whisper comes from the grave of my mom,
don't let life slip away into sorrow,

and through the moonlit smiles of angels,
through the silence of stone,

there among the tombstones
where time no longer teases,

the silent flight of tomorrows.