Serendipity

Like butterflies in the desert
You
Surprised me

Moving quietly
Gradually
Into my obsessions
I never really stood a chance
Did I?

Healing

One tear drops
Enough
To wipe the ashes from my heart

The second falls
And the slate is clean once more

The third
Is simply
For the beauty of the thing

With the fourth
Comes enlightenment
My joy distilled

A Winter's Evening

Outside
The snow's crisp brilliance
Wind sculpted
Into chisel-sharp ridges
My once familiar world
An alien landscape

Inside
Shards of frozen moonlight
Fractured into jagged pieces
And scattered
Recklessly
On the floor

Pink Jellyfish

Stranded in a pool
By the tide
As I was stranded
On the beach
By the Sabbath
Smaller than a saucer
Pale rose pink
And in possession
Of invisible
Stinging tendrils
Apparently
As the unpleasant buzzing
Smarting
Burning in my little finger would attest.

Bamboo Snake

Five or six years old
Maybe seven
I had seen only one other

We'd been walking down the concrete steps
To the beach
When up ahead there was a commotion

Upon reaching them
(Those with the longer legs)
I saw it

Long, lithe, green
And dead
Once-supple body dried by that
Unforgiving sun
No threat to anyone

But this one was
Oh so alive
Winding its slender
Green way through the neighbours' hedge
A mere six or seven inches long
(Though I didn't think in such terms
At the time)
Delicate red tongue flicking rapidly
In and out
Tiny, shiny eyes
And I
I alone to see it

The delicious
Horrible knowledge
That this insignificant
Monstrous thing
Could end my life
Was not enough to keep me
From squatting down to study it
To imprint its deadly beauty
On my forever memory

After all
It was just a baby
And I
I was invincible.