Is this what I am
in your wet shine eyes
your countenance
bathed in homespun
brittle sorrows?
Tiny darts of petulant hurt
are flung at this image
this effigy of me
rushes of fantasy
tied with brambles of desire
into a sad man-shape
The barbs fall short
hindered in flight
by the fear to face
all that I truly am
all you helped
to make me?
Are you finished?
Is the unwrought
able to set tools aside?
Cease your volleys
your tears
let the love
you helped to suffocate
slip by in silence
unmarked
and unremarked
Seek yourself
in the fading ruin
and when you find you
rise up
become the whole your half needs
and cut the strangled rushes free

~~~

© W.R.R. 2/4/2002

If you were hurt
burned
as the phoenix took flight
do you blame
the ascendant creature
or accept that you chose
to remain stagnant
to drown in stung pride
like a bitter afterbirth
in the very path of the fire?
The glowing embers whisper
it is not too late
to choose
to rise
to fly

~~~

© W.R.R. 8/31/2011

Innocence is a mask
donned by any soul
quick enough
to pluck it up
before it is tarnished

~~~

© W.R.R. 8/20/2011

Beauty can be found in moldering stone
a faded hibiscus bloom, a sunset
a dead bird, a child’s laughter
Beauty is a defeated chrysanthemum
more poignant in humility than pride
Beauty is the sweetest rose
bedewed with tears of a lover
Beauty exists in sunlight gleaming from a stone
embedded in mud
Beauty is the sound of wind
the strength of a thunderstorm
the claw of lightning, the dance of willow leaves
Beauty breathes in the old written page
as fragile as the resolve of men to love life
and be indentured to it, when he only wants love
that elusive thing of beauty, personified
But life is at times not living for love, or beauty
Life, now and then, is mere surviving
forsaking surcease from fear only
to watch life become the personification of pain

~~~

© W.R.R. 5/30/2002