Tag: jeremiah ray poet

empty air

How does my breath
get taken by yours?
When I speak,
you seem to draw out the marrow
from my words.
If my words come from fear,
you take in the shadows.
If they come from longing,
then I am left holding only
the remains of desire.
Is this
how we share?
Breath at the core,
yet I am
grasping at empty air.

tea

a gray morning
a cup of hot tea
I set my thoughts aside
and watch for sunlight
I taste the sweet tea
lingering on my lips
I wish I could hold time
just slow it down enough
so daylight moves slowly
never quite arriving
and my tea
never gets cold

a tree

When I am in the woods, I stay quiet

I want to be like a tree

A tree only moves when something moves it

It does not try to imitate anything else

It is always true to itself

 

murky waters

an old photograph shows
my father
I was just a child
looking up in wonder
The pond shimmered
cool and
refreshing relief from the heavy summer
heat
We used to leap from
the muddy bank
into the murky water below
offered us secrets only children could sense
we were still so young
looking up the way only children can
do
while the adults pretended
in the way only adults
do

peeling the layers
of an onion
the dried skin
flaking away
down to the off-white flesh
of the fruit
pulling the
separate layers
that tell stories
unfolding them one by one
and holding
the flesh to your ear
and saying yes

waking you, softly

 you,
 in this light
        
the smell of dreams
and sleep.

and i
breathe you

you unfolding from your sleep.

you to life
         
i
can hold onto this

a decade

I went back
to the old books
because
I couldn’t remember
their stories

it’s strange
how much can change in ten years

the characters
felt so different

I couldn’t
read the same pages again
where I had once found
myself

it’s strange
what a decade can change