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Cycling
pushing air around with each pulse of our rotating feet
into the night with its sun fading views
no matter how dark it gets
as long as we hold each other’s hands along the path to where our hearts reside
I don’t have to see your silhouette to know the way

I can hear the gears spinning under the night clouds billowing
the mist building around the spokes as fog falls
our warmth keeps us above low sky
raising over storms below
until the sky lights up again
hearing the laugh that accompanies your smile
will be when the sun rises
and my heart slows down to stare into your eyes for a morning mile

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Some say marriage is at the heart of life
the chapter by which one’s story doesn’t just turn another page but takes a step forward

Actually, it’s a symbol of praise and exaltation
not just for one another but to the throne of God on high
as pages of pulp bind to leather and we are given a pen
so too does the maker of all things breathe wonder into the story of us all

There is but one ring that can bind a fantasy bound in the pages of life
to not be alone is meant to teach
that the heart of God for all creation is to hold it close
that the dedication to all that is good in this world
is that which is in His mind
and is not to be breached

The gift of sacrifice is constructed in the freedom of will
and finished with wonder from “I do” to breath’s final spell

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Awaking to light, stone, and water
looking to the back of this shallow river
I am surrounded by steep riverbanks and a thick bed of trees

A fledgling to this waterway piled with hard remnants of eternities past
a woman covered in light and shade looks my way
as if she has been expecting me to stir for a period protracted

“Welcome to the river forgotten,” she says.
“You are at nature’s edge. I am the woman of the wood.”
“In time immemorial I wait for the end of the age when man dies and so too does nature with no creature to be its master.”

“It has been millennia since this domain teemed with all manner of life. The winds have stopped kicking, the leaves are still. It’s so quiet that even this trickling water echoes throughout the remnants of this cruel and indifferent nature”.

Indeed, I can hear the murmurous ripples from the woman’s feet as if they were sloshing in quarrel with my ears. It takes quite an effort to focus and hear through the wet emptiness.

“You’ll adjust. Breathe heavily, exert, and build. The sounds of life will find balance and make the sounds of silence still. Then the way beyond the thick trees will open. Your activity here will make rain and bring a balance to life again. And when the waters rise above the tree line, you’ll find your way home and back again.”

And so, that is the way I lived. Somehow in my human nature I knew that I was both larger than life but tied to its roots. I had dominion over every creature and fielded all manner of life for food, shelter, speaking my purpose quietly and with increasing might. Every now and again I’d see the woman of the wood with the reflection of the river in her thigh. As the water level rose so did the water dance further up her form, and when the reflection finally reached her face, the tree line was broken.

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Curls of an aureate mermaid
frizzling in a host of amber gold
running fingers through her hair would encounter midas strands

As reflective as gem of bronzite
a halo passes through each fiber to brilliant auburn skin
the shell of her eyes and lips covered in dark coral lush

Can she hear in the walls of golden coil brush rustling in her ears?
Is beauty timeless beyond its years?
What is in the depths of the mind ocean beyond rose gold covered eyes

To conceal and know
it is one of the glories of kings
but to understand you must turn mystery’s page to know the heart of things

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There is an old stone bridge in an enchanted wood
carved with lines
covered in vines
about as mysterious as something surrounded by forest should be

There is a shallow river with current soft
running under
flowing wonder
a current as peaceful and wet as toes that are dipped in them can get

There, gradated illumination older than even ancient trees
growing thick
twisting licks
a portal moving from shine to shade revealing each color in wad

Nature, around every bend
rolling lush streams
is only outshined in awe
by the dream my woman brings

There is a future ahead in these walls green
vivid, live
full of blithe
a peace plain in unadorned tan as moving ahead becomes our plan

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How many years has it been?
It’s been so many that our memories feel like yesterday
I look at the love in your eyes from this moment to all the way back

Every step we’ve taken led us to each other
where the journey of life in unison started
Reaching to stroke your hair
the trust to take everything in our arms coursed through the sound of our breathing
all time has always felt still while our romance seems to never stop steaming

Until death do us part
your hands in mine
I am thankful to have been bestowed a gift so divine

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At the end of the hall of preparation
in front of the door to a life wide open
light fades into one concentrated streak

A bare-chested woman observes the shadow of her figure on the wall
wondering if by peering through the peephole she’ll know how to receive the life outside
she can’t tell for sure if she’s pretty

As her dark outline oscillates between the way she is and what she could be
in the thin sliver of light
she wonders when her goals to be beautiful became torment
what gave her the why
and when was self-reflection kissed goodbye

Don’t let being fearfully and wonderfully made turn to vanity
2 Corinthians 4:16
“Do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”
There is a place for beauty
flesh is not a shield
it is a cover to the soul
whether in leather or paperback
take the time to make sure the outside is a reflection of the bullet of conviction
from your heart to the back

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Studio Vitiligo
inspired in name by the patchwork materials with which it was built
a barren space of decades-worn wood
faded beige
finish stripped in blotches from innumerable artists spending innumerable time dedicated to their craft
now ready to close

Curled up
is the last artist to know the timeline
touched by light through cloudy pane
reflecting off bone white walls
Her skin is fading as well through a disease of the same name
holding herself in a child’s pose
packing it in
as an era comes to an end
she embraces knowing so
is to fill the next chapter with patchwork of her own

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Spotted in the street
the market square where everyone meets
covered in denim and plaid
a grin seems to flicker in her eyes

So we go to the place where everyone eats
talking about how even though this is the place to be
amongst so many this is where my eyes met you
and yours met me

How a moment in time could tell us so much
God only knows
In the moments to come it would only be ever more sure
that amongst all people passing by
everything that told us to keep to ourselves
to be shy
was gone the second sparks flew in our eyes

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In simple purple garter and sheer dark stocking
sheathed from the outside world by drapes faded white
lowering her look with a soft smile as her hand rests on her leg
imagining her man coming home to his woman with her hair and guard let down

She spent time to be a doll for the one she considers her all
knowing he loves her
excitement soars in her heart
there’s a full day to go
but loving him loving her is her favorite way to start

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On a secluded beach by a coastal town
forest jutting right up to the sand’s edge
casting the coast in equal sun and shade
Only the tide enters and goes
except for those that know weaving lines
through bark and leaves

There walks a woman with more minerals than salt
and more savory to the eyes
no cycle of the shore or time of day can whisk her away
she is the company of the sea

Cropped on top in heather gray around her sleeves
winding below her breasts
purple petals are on her mind and about her waving waist
playing with her hair in the hueing haze of late afternoon

She stands tall in the water with waist spreading her stance

Looking into the lapping waves as dusk settles in
she turns back to weaving lines
thankful for a time to coast on the coast

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What are words on a page? In the case of the perception of the female form, perhaps they are the precursor to spoken word, images in magazines, the weight of fabrications of social movements in scrolling streams.

Beauty is rampant in this world, but it’s also been rampantly stripped bare, not just by male gaze, profit, and lust, but women too. The oldest profession has new life in the information age where destructive attention is a fashionable currency. Conservation may dictate to cover up lest you inspire one to sin, while broadmindedness claims to simultaneously allow behavioral freedom while leaving people with no compass nor line. A whore or a prude is what so many people see as their choices. The fear of loveliness equating every action behind the shell as being on the precipice of sin. Everything on the outside the enemy of self-worth, how does one find a way between the rejection of it all or trading it in for cash?

Modesty! Some people may say, but what is it? If the hidden person of the heart is full of gentle and quiet spirit, can’t the creation of clay within which we are meant to be nascent and bloom express something about what is inside, our maker, and who we are meant to be? If we are the potter and He is the clay, can’t we declare “Formed from the dust of the ground, to our nostrils we received the breath of life. All are from dust, to dust all return.”

To reach to the heavens and honor God in heart, soul, and strength. There is a time and a season for the cover of the book to be seen. It’s not everything and everywhere in every circumstance. It’s meant to illustrate a piece of the story and glory of God and us across all and in our time.

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Everything behind her fleetingly fades into a spiraling blur
even the season of Spring in all its pullulate magnificence

Tanned and smoother than stones washed in an infinity along varnished shores
there is a flower she carries in her breasts that wait
visible only by sunlight blessing on which its respect reflects

Hidden at other times by blushing dresses, cheeks, and rich lips
the sun waits in patience to purse
to see her hair part and peek through
so her love can count “she loves me” and “she loves me nots” until reaching the center of her heart
looking into her eyes
and saying
“she loves me lots”

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Somewhere out there
sitting in a beanbag chair crumpled from the comforts of many carefree years of use
a young woman waiting to leave home but enjoying it still
imagines the sweeping water and encompassing wind at her back

Picturing herself in a two piece dress with her pleasant waist surrounded by the silk of the sea
her eyes close in delight as she hears the whishing tone of glistening glass bulbs in the sound
the misty embroidery clings to her taut topography and it’s hugging beads wrap her in blue eternity

Crystal bells are ringing
a dream is in the sound
a lady is a silken mermaid
only one wondrous time around

It may not be forever
but it’s a memory that lasts
never take for granted
that which fades into the past

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Far above the carnival
the stands and the hustle of life
rests a woman on a great walkway in the sky lined with shimmering silver

Beige and blush run across the fair skin of her fruit
sound of heart pulses in beating circles around her waveform necklace and bare chest
In the bright fog of day
the gate to her breasts is still covered in black
even the misty sun rays would not be able to soften the light behind the veil

Pockets of clouds barely tucked away in her valley
patches among the blue
as they move
start and stop
each gliding reveal and drawn curtain shows something new

Light running from sternum down the river of her abdomen
to the pool of her belly
placing pastel fingers across her hips
looking away to the side so the sun fades into breezing hair
the clouds gladly part to reveal rich brown eyes
lips in peak season

Even with the excitement below
the carnival in full swing
you can always stop and know
the flowing light in the walkway in the sky lined with silver
is shimmering

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Little ones to him belong: they are weak, but He is strong.
Let us worship the one who raises the tide
lifts all boats
covers the earth
and makes it new

Weakness is like the dew of the morning
you have the day ahead to warm and dry
it may crack your skin
but in each passing of each age
you can accomplish what He has fashioned you in

The earth will respond as you grow in skill and the ways He has taught
To persevere requires patience
quiet effort
the hypocrite others don’t see
whose working steadily
chipping away at folly
becoming a deer panting for water
instead of a lost fawn

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Every day I look into the eyes of my wife and see the striking life in her heart
somewhere along the way her expressions sometimes got lost in her mind
but even in a wheelchair her resounding resilience never left

She struggles to not look past my face to the other things around her
yet every time she lets my hands stay in hers
and when I play the guitar I can distinctly see all the memories we have are still inside
the strong reverberations of string and melodious song
bringing back the words of all the nights that were long with music

With each day that passes and my hands find hers
ever since everything changed
I’ve come to know love more than I knew I could
Getting here taught me that this always was how much I should

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There’s a book held in this woman’s breast
You can see in her eyes it’s a mirror imparting words to and returning from the heart

When words are true they are naked
fleecing through herds of noise
when words are false they are clothed
ligature dressed to mask anger, vapidness, and conceit

Genuine expressions of what is real
stick with us and break fallacies’ seal

This woman with red around her eyes
a bandage around her wrist
could she be resting in the knowledge that thoughts don’t need to bleed
that critical thinking does not need the herd to confirm her calling and election?

That goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love
can be reminded of without the acceptance of every self-projection?

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Water’s way is reflective
clear
what you see up close
is also a sound in your ear

The stillness of small swashes
constantly cast light and sound
what is light on the surface
weighs heavily on the ground

So too, a wonderful woman wet and exposed to blue sky and smooth hard floor of rock and sand
is like a floating object in the sound
what is above is what makes your heart skip a beat and fly with her in your hand
throwing elated light on the ocean of years
what is below affectionately walks with you through calm and deep fears
each step moving the weight of it all closer to shore

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There’s a place deep in the jungle with the most beautiful flower
dusky from the sun
her stem shoots up to petals white in her hair

A blossom of white and bronze
black hair as dark as the deep beyond
eyes just as rich
dressed in sheer woven feminine sheath
an intricate soft cotton rope
woven with holes stretching and conforming all around
barely covering her hips
the strands drape from there around

With one leg lifted
her foot caressing the other standing stout
her hands trace the trunk and the leaves of this rainforest moment

Stepping forward
stretching arms overhead
she swings her hips to one side
gazing to the other
the seasons here don’t change
because she is nature’s mother

Now leaning one arm against bark
distinctly swaying lower body all the way away
bracing with toned figure
hips and face face the sky
with each passing moment fabric and skin
blending together
more and more in

Finally moving from the base of nature’s plot
making way to a tall wooden gate surrounded by stone
not nearly as sculpted as her slender muscular backside and bone
With one hand on the door
she stops and looks
the knitted wilds lace
slightly in motion
from waist down
as it wraps around a portion of her large round rear brawn
nature has said hello on this mother nature’s dawn

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