Softer

I don’t mean to be ungrateful
or a first-bloom scrooge,
thankful I am for the widespread
fuchsia-imbued mood,

but purple in my pinks
are spills to me
and not enough to undam
the purity

my soul longs
to reunite with –
light brushkissing
glossed lips

white-to-white,
blush-to-blush,
never bold,
never rushed,

so I look
for those softest of hues,
the whispers
in the glare
of azalea jewels.

At The Trestle

Navigating rapids,
being battered by waves,
flailing in riptides:
for decades, the assay.

Perhaps that’s why
these ripples and reflections
call to me now
to make amends. 

I let my soul be stroked
with the bristles
coating with liquid layers
in redemption, baptismal:

acquittal.

A sibyl
reinstated.

Something about this river
brings back the scribbles
on my slate. 

I linger
at the trestle bridge, 
toes across inverted sky, skim. 
I know it is a portal
to where I have been.

I chant the rising words
to be let
in…