fountain of youth

childhood lost--where then innocence?--
i misunderstand the clouds--where, then
is innocence? knowing these trees
vacant with animation of birds,
would their roots know
my heart in the soil?
gnarled bark and escaped leaf,
my hands forget, deaf
to touch.

dandelion! freely breeze dreams lifted,
i sleep in starlight oblivion.

remember the rhody, the honeysuckle,
estuary of boyhood. i outgrow these shoes,
shadows of footsteps long
in the distance.

where then innocence? pennies for the fountain,
fountain of youth,
scattered among the shells.

beach 3

sheltered sea, these ships of tears,
sail! tattered wood, scattered beach,
shipwrecked shells, sailing no more.

this broken beach, shore forlorn,
sail! timeless graveyard, calcified ocean,
crows' beaks, pick through bones.

oh wailing seascape, escaping dream,
sail! deliberate heron, intentive step,
waveless water, strike deep!

beach 2

two heron in one sea, one
stands in water, the other
reflects silence.

heron walks in water, one
the other, the other
is neither.

one heron in two seas, one
like the other, the other
is the sea.

two heron in two seas, one
walks in shallows, the other
reflects in silence.

beach 1

see how mirrored smooth sea
drinks in clouds and mountains.

a forgotten piling with eagle crown
stands ever watchful silence.

sea! nary a whisper or wink
wordlessly waiting in sleepy tears.

i hear only the weeping sand. here
there is no sound, only the weeping.

in passing

inverted root where i find this
limit of flowers, you pass,
unheed offerings.

sun forfeits the rose's corona,
eclipse like clouds
shackles the valley muted.

there are none, they are not
here, forgotten:  dictions
of salvational petals.

luminous bird, all of them,
flutters on, whimsical elsewhere,
calling to paler skies.