The Kiss

The Kiss

How could I have known
this every-morning kiss goodbye
would be our last...

An ordinary moment
much too soon became our past...

I don’t know what to do...

These unfamiliar duties
so grievous and so new...

Then I feel the whisper
of your spirit brush my brow
and angel kiss that comforts me
for now...
11/29/2001

The Giver

She gives like the river,
all of herself,
her moisture, her minerals
her earthy wealth
asking nothing in return
because she’s learned
there’s rain in due season,
drought for a reason,
a little rain, a little sun,
and plenty of room for a river to run...
She offers her arms from east to west
north to south, and all the rest--
fingers healing thirsty flowers,
rivulets that wind for hours,
nursing both the new and aging,
some of her at peace
some raging,
unaware how vast her reach,
how essential she to each.
She supplies the Maker of the Rain
to drink her up to rain again.
She offers all
is filled again
by her sacrifice to make the rain.
She nurses mosses, suckles soil
anoints the parched and dry like oil.
She nurtures grazers, grasses, trees.
She trickles to those,
she thunders to these...
She’s been to the Living Water’s source.
She’s felt Its ebb, Its pull, Its force.
Of course, she knows its endless supply
she carries from sky to earth to sky.
In flood and drought
she does not doubt,
She flows on prayers.
Everything she has
she shares.

Legacy (For Sonja Lee Memmott Bronson)

It’s yesterday
and I am again a girl
sofa-sitting as you sew
and we are watching rain
through the picture window pane...
...watching little boys
Sting-Ray surfing down streaming streets
spitting and spraying yet staying upright
puddling in flooded gutters drenched with joy
each little boy
dripping and sliding and riding and wet
and yet...
still we stand,
your arm around my shoulders
while you say
"I really love a rainy day"
I smile
In a while,
I am grown again
knowing why I stand here
smiling, loving rain
through a picture window pane.

Learning to Walk in Ruby Slippers

I’ve traveled so far
twixt soil and star
tripping on yellow bricks,
skipping,
standing,
kicking against the pricks,
leaping,
landing,
gallivanting,
tip-toe tapping,
strutting,
strolling,
night patrolling,
trudging,
touring,
mapless exploring
deftly ignoring
the inner voices
whispering warnings
of chances, of choices...
of Kansas farms...
and open arms
of Auntie Em, of Henry and Toto...
all of them calling
the way they’re supposed to
hoping I’ll march on
through the fear...
hoping I’ll listen
and finally hear:
"You’ve always had
the power
within you,
my dear!"