Momentum...
within an instant
of violent
shift,
reveals my true
frailty.

Disjointed...
the pinch is a searing
knife-edge pain

Numbness experienced...
and the feedback
of nerves
atwitch...
a humbling
agony
...and crippling intensity...
© 25 November 1988...
written at 03:00 am, after an injury that twisted my body nearly 180 degrees.
The residual damage is a large part of why I am in a wheelchair now.

Sadly

In the night...
the noble wolf howls divide the silence
Throughout the land heralds call
a chill moon's passage

What is the sound of a butterfly
weeping sadly
Gossamer wings acquiver
atwitch with gentle sobbing

Behind eyes aglisten
wet with tears
A soul grieves losses accrued
Years of dreams unfulfilled
mourned in their wispy dissipation

What is the music of a moth's breath
mingling with vagrant breezes
Her time a wafting vapor passing
here...and then no more

08Nov95-StVH

Forgotten...

How easy to overlook
the small, the sad, the quiet
while bustling in scattered frenzy
to and fro... and fro again

How easy to misunderstand
even quite the simplest gesture
The thought and word unspoken
lost in mists of ignorance

How easy it is to hurt...

09Nov95

zephyr wafting to and fro...
barest touch of breath
floating...drifting aimlessly ..
now east and now to west

doomed to wander evermore
across a realm she never knew
a chance of ever coming back
is granted but to few

an edge she never saw
broke free within her gentle soul
cracking timid buttercat
she won't attain her goal

shattered heart cries fear and shame
broken body trembles...
battered mind wanders lost
her soul a fading ember.

17 September '97