What Passes For Eternity

you who know

you are alone in 

your own thoughts should

know again

I was with you all along

when blossoms rained down

turning a clouded earth to cherry

when we in tears that never dried 

hugged our sorrows until their begging surrender

when we sipped our thirst away from cupped hands

kissed in the dancing pool

of a lost spring 

and you splashed at me crazily

shouting out what pain remained

watching it drain away in 

the last rays of a sun 

struggling alone 

in its own un-

knowing 

 

No Regret

is this long repeating talk of robins in dogwood enough

he thinks the sound of it is more than enough to echo

into the hollow of his soul it is more than sweet enough

to end this very moment

reasonless the wind saws away in pine taller than the sun

it is caught up in long branches torn

in the back and forth of sawdust clouds

it blinds one eye

you still see it for everything it is

it celebrates his sightlessness like some drunken actor

singing an ancient Irish song

in a dark and

vacant hall

and more than morning robins calling to each other

more than the hollow persistent drum inside of him

more than the word of her that lingers like

a combing breeze in long fields of lavender

when every sound somehow becomes one

he retreats to his pleasing emptiness

with little more than

no regret

JPPestana

No Regret

May 31, 2023

 Did She

did she say all blossoms are songs
each one written then so easily erased in a mist
languishing without reason
she stayed with me when the last fell darkly pink
from the oldest tree
a spring abandoned in a clamor of sameness
a chorus of tears
was their more or less of her before I became this
I don't remember if I am now
or when
if ever

JPPestana
Did She
16 April 2023

 

The Tremble

this listening wind is all this is

no stranger than anything else it follows me to here

then there back again

this is the between of me

the all or nothing

the unremembered voices tremble

elude the pursuit of old what was once new

relentlessly searching

held ever so lovingly

squeezed sweetly

until utterly

completely

alive

The Tremble

1.26.2023

JPPestana