Courage, she says to herself in a giddy voice:
to look clear-eyed into the darkness 
and see the dragonflies fluttering low over the water in pairs,
wings shining of satin because they dare the wind
in the last rays of the summer sun before autumn narrows the aperture.

Loneliness is the precondition, the steadfast friend that says, "Stand up:" 
to plant and to harvest, to reach for the sunflower that wills the ink to the page
where the tapestry of hours and ages weaves
faith into words that become the way, the path to the core of the story
where the blinding brightness all poets have ever sought resides.

On the moors of the mind it is frightening,
The dankness smells of death, the fragile neck of life about to be broken,
the sunflower taken down so one cannot but obsess over the horror of it.
The courage of all things is the tragedy of knowing
borne across the glistening water, the hymn of endings sung to the skies.

He waved at me from a distance,
faceless.
Only the hand said goodbye:
"I have lived and loved this earth.
Now I return to the Mother."

Through the years, we smiled at the sky
over coffee in the sun,
a pack of biscuits split open
so the foil inside gleamed in the rays.

In our sweet-soaked white uniforms
zipped down to the mid-riff,
we laughed at the swelling of our fingers,
reveled in our tireless winged comrades. 

Sometimes I think all I know about joy
Comes from that birthing table.
Take some with you, you hear,
Leave the tools with me.

Lean on the Mother
when you don't know where to turn.
It's alright if you are small again,
Look what you have left behind.

On a form of goodbye to a devoted, beloved beekeeper, my teacher of nearly twenty years, provoked by the sight of these sunflowers on my farm.

Planted only for your beauty,
for the imperceptible way you follow the sun,
and keep yourself trained on life and its source,
unafraid to become the warm rays,
statuesque and unabashed by the murmurings below
that you have taken too great a risk
in refusing to be anything but yourself.

On the opening of the sunflowers on my island this August.
​