Green leaves tap at my window like lost souls.
I trace their signatures upon the glass.
Dawn is only a few quatrains away.
I memorize the fragrance of spring rain.
...
The river in December
Do you remember?
When time was graying
Old leaves decaying?
...
There is a tide mysterious as the sea,
Dividing light and darkness endlessly,
West of the moment's own necessity.
...
Sometimes on lowering days I think of you
And watch the clouds create your Slavic face.
True poetry is ageless I am told,
But those who pen it are as frail as smoke.
...
I was picking flowers and you were praising smoke.
The echoes of that last time linger on.
Birds pieced from the gray quilt of the dusk
Sang mighty wholeness that is ever lost.
...
I sit beside the hearth fire of your words,
A temporary light by feelings heard.
Beyond the dark rim, winter's killing fields
Encroach upon a heart by memory sealed.
...
Beyond the glass snowfall is luminous.
Winter burns like a lamp upon the sill.
The old house creaks in deference to the wind.
Kind eyes affirm that cold cannot come in.
...
Sometimes my thoughts exist in your country,
A place, perhaps, too harsh for yellow flowers.
My whisper travels across continents
Distance is blue, to whom it may concern.
...
In memory of Leonard Opalov
To me Latvian poets seemed quite rare,
But I knew one called Leonard Opalov.
...
Sometimes at night I hear small birds lament.
Dark notes that seem to second moon's descent.
Cold is the color of a deep regret,
An etude perfected by winterset.
...