A sonnet

As a traveler who clears a grassy crest
can see the miles where he has not yet been,
I see that I'll speak lies, like all the rest---

It's hard to say precisely what I mean.

It is our tools that make us what we are.

The part of you that listens, my voice that speaks,

we cling to dreams of distance, close or far.

The world is a wooden wheel that creaks

in coldly flowing water, turns and turns.

With the blazing light of a winter noon

a quiet unmoving core within me burns

and clings to nothing. The empty moon

dances in its stillness.  I am my will.

Listen to the silence,

                                         and be still.

Empty house

The woman and child left suddenly.

There were clean summer clothes stacked in the closets,

a child's dolls abandoned and lost.

The man left later, bitter with rage.

The rooms are filthy and trashed, full of fleas

and the stink of spoiled food, excrement and anger.

In the attic, there are Halloween decorations and

a plastic Christmas tree, ornaments dusty.

There are boxes of children's clothing,

well-worn, covered with the usual dust of attics.

There are pictures of people still on the walls

in the bedroom, but there are no names.

They need no names.  Their stories are all known.

I think we leave our bodies like our houses,

happiness buried in the grave with grief.