Van Gogh’s sunflowers —
all twelve of them —
so lively, lush,
standing, bending;
they do not submit
to ikebana’s poise
and posture —
golden — no — bronze —
beautiful yet strange.
I am certain
this is the color
of grief thick as impasto,
of desire leaping
like a gazelle,
beyond the canvas’s frame —
wedged in...
Fear is at the back of her mind, a shimmering heat in the distance, a glowing ember in the dark. Silently acknowledged but never confronted, because naming might push her off the deep end. But it is there, biding its time, like a...
There is no warning—
the sky, a sudden insurgent,
opens with
guerrilla downpour.
Torrential rain,
an unrelenting witness,
assaults the fragile spines of trees
and the quiet bones of houses.
Water spills, not as mercy,
but as a force that shatters
the brittle calm we cling to.
In the heart's small orchard,
the fruit...
"There must be something strangely sacred about salt.It is in our tears and in the sea."from SAND AND FOAM (1926) by Khalil Gibran
Matthew 5:13— "You are the salt of the earth. But ifthe salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made saltyagain?...
BY THIS TIME next year, Teresita could be elsewhere, unmindful of the biting cold. She could see herself walking along a cobblestone path strewn with scattered leaves from maple trees that lined the streets. It would be October, and the foliage would be...
“Do we ever win, Mom?”
Raniw smiled at the young ginger cat, barely out of kittenhood, who asked the question.
“No, Runi, we will never win. Death finds our hooman in different ways. It’s just that the people we seek to protect could be used...
Stone and Scratcher
after a photo by Frank Cimatu
My human knows how to scratch
ecstasy and submission out of me,
rendering my retractable claws
cold as a wet...
The chisel as creator
Lends shape to wood, to stone.
Shape being the truth of character,
Reality of body and bone,
Sculpted fact of form,
The confidence of matter.
The...
White, fresh snowfall
Its arrival, highly anticipated
presents a silence
All is absorbed
All sounds trapped in all this snow
The fluff, the layers
have made it
All quiet
All slow
Eventually
It is...