Winter's Ice

One Last Word

Within her heart is snow fall.
Inch by inch covering the scorched place
where the dream took light, blazed and died
its sputtering ashen death.

Silence befalls this place.
Only the cold hiss of ice crystals
landing en masse like cruise ship
tourists overtaking the shore.

Surely they’ve never been here before.
They peruse the shops looking for perfect gifts.
The conch shell he’d brought from Florida?
The beret from Paris? The poetry?

No, they are agitated in their cold
obnoxious way. They want service.
They want a cold drink by the pool.
They wonder why they came here at all.

Still they settle into their icy silence
awaiting the only other sound they will ever make.
The crunch of a new traveler’s footsteps into her heart.
Hoping to conjure the arctic explorer’s of tomorrow

to say one last word.

Joni
11/13/05

A Touchstone

The Last Place I Felt Your Smile

I visit it again. The stage of your renown
and the poetry pushes against the leaden
edges of my heart. This is the place of my father.
A holy relic of a youth I barely remember.
A building abandoned long ago, like the
pristine child’s love I held you in.

I remember basking in the glow of your
accomplishments here. A bit part, with no lines,
but great satisfaction that I was yours.
My words came later, but only shouted in
response to the vine that gripped us in the hush
and shame of fallen warriors and heroes.

I didn’t make the choices that led from this place,
but I grew within them like a cold estranged wife.
Now I’ve made my own place in a new world.
And as I stand in the last place I felt your smile, I
weep that I lost our love when I was so very young,
and I realize that everyday I've missed the man you were.

Joni
1/8/07