Quill #50 - Pumpkin (2010)

She has a new love in her life,
And I'm happy for her.
I want her to experience
All the joys,
All the love,
All the freedom and laughter,
Everything wonderful in huge quantities,
More than I did,
More than any before her.
It is not jealousy that binds my heart
And causes my eyes to leak.
It is knowing how little time
I have left to spend with her.

-----

Song nears its ending,
Lilting flowers to my ears,
I hug my daughter.

Bird flies free with wind,
Speeding over bright meadows.
My feet wear stone shoes.

Pumpkin seed flowers
Into handsome orange fruit.
Stem will soon be cut.

-----

To be a healer is a sacred gift.
There are rules and vows,
Years of studious work,
Even then, many guesses.
To save a life, cure ills,
These are precious talents.
No real skill is required to
Become a mother but
You can't save a life
That was never given.

Quill #46 - Gaming Poetry: Ring City & Dark Ring Cycle (1981)

Lucian

A shadow in the dark
That other shadows fear,
A breath to blow the loudest horn
Though not be heard by ears,
A dream to bind realities
That never seems to pass,
A blade to shear the deepest fog
Yet cannot bend the grass,
And evergreen to fallen leaves,
An age that never ends,
A king among the ancient ones,
The law that never bends,
A bird that flies from house to house
And yet no feather owns,
But when the fire of day is gone,
The comes the light unknown.

-----

Narya

When at last all shadows flee
And one light left to burn,
The dream shall waken those in peace
To knowledge they must learn.

One ring alone awaits the call
To save one ring from fate,
The chosen heir to fire's ring
Shall open trouble's gate.

An offspring of two kindred
The fire shall grow from hate,
But light and fire are lovers
And so the light shall mate.

And when the light and fire are one
Both kindreds shall unite,
The peace that was will always be
When all shall know the light.

Quill #31 - Whippoorwill Memory (2009)

There was a whippoorwill outside our house when I was growing up. Her slow mournful call was the subject of many breakfast conversations with my father. When I moved away, I didn't miss the bird the way I'd worry over a lost tooth that would be probed again and again. Instead, her absence affected me as if a quality to the air was lacking, or like a piece of music remembered only in dreams. Every time I heard another I was transported for a few rare moments to a small frame house in Kansas. a space at the table my father built, two eggs fried in butter, and a warm spring day waiting for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sukE9pGayRc&feature=related

Quill #18 - Silk Screen (1995)

Stillness in my garden
This black night
Rustles paper souls.
Easy to spy upon brown shadows,
A country of bamboo puppets,
Shuffling through one bright house.
Stillness so profound that cattails do not tremble in the breeze.
Even the waterfowl flow carefully,
Present themselves as angelic geisha,
Sneaking lies below long lashes,
Listening for deep currents.
Tameflowers bend.