kyrie

my hands are chapped

from this crackling cold dry air

especially the knuckles

and finger tips  

need to use moisturizer ten times a day

to stop cracks from forming fissures

that reveal the pink flesh beneath  

outside the snow keeps piling

like a Bach kyrie

all wind and despair  

a white world of icy blasts

chapping the soul

until fissures form cracks

invaded  by your healing love  

a balm of kisses in this

winter’s

hunched

coldness

714 Ash

had brown awnings and a basketball hoop in the back yard

and there I am  

stretched            to the limit

off the ground

ball on its way to basket

brown shirt

brown pants

looking up with blonde locks

flying in spring breeze 

standing in front of pink blossomed tree

in the back yard

same brown shirt buttoned to neck

ten-year-old eyes looking

straight                 into        camera

slight smile dimpling cheeks 

throwing baseball

brown shirt untucked around shorts

biting bottom lip with the effort of the throw

blue sky criss-crossed with hydro wires 

on floor of bedroom

games and notebooks on the shelves behind me

that was where top forty radio

guided my ears

and hairbrush mics

let me perform 

posing

holding some sort of trophy

and a paper in my baseball glove

picnic table and picture window

with awning behind me

tan jacket zipped up 

crazy boyhood year

unzipped

with five pictures

Panama sunrise

sun peaks over the Pacific

in this sideways world

powerful heat arrows bore into me

sitting on balcony

of white high rise condo

on December 30^th

wearing tan shorts and a brimmed hat 

ocean a band of shimmering grey in the distance

impossible to fathom

the endless horizon 

sun climbs steadily

light and heat to the world

and this body and soul on this balcony

soaking up this sideways peace

at year’s end

seeing Panama

we ascend on serpentine road

into mountains

white rented Hyundai gleaming in hot sun

watching for people

at home here

on rickety bikes or walking

on edge of narrow road  

marvelling at giant blossoms on lush shrubs lining road

red pink yellow

noticing mountain peaks defining the space

and tumbling down into vast valleys of green tropical forest

some homes are estates with barbed wire fences

some are clapboard shacks defying gravity 

valley town bustles

brother and sister ride down the street on a bike

old wizened busker playing fiddle tunes for hours

at the market

where little boy lies in nest of blankets under a display table

waiting for journey back into mountain home

beneath the surface

vivid hues            jut

just below surface

coral and porous rocks

violet

pink

peach

blue

green  

I lower face into water

taste salt

and spy through personal window

deliberate breathing through rubber snorkel  

stay close to island edge

where two dimensional fish swim

in            and        out

of rock cracks and holes

some striped

others so tiny

they can't possibly belong in this

vastness

of the Pacific

the endless enigma

unless you crack the surface

and look