A fresh start, a new community, self uprooted and replanted in a different, roomier pot. I am one of a migration, but it's time to hide behind a fresh mask and try on a pseudonym for size. There's some wiggle room, but so far, I like the fit.
I am a poet, or a pretender, or a poet-pretender. My poetic license is both earned and bought and paid for, so whatever I am, I have the credentials somewhere to lend credence to my claims. I am not a frame-and-hang-for-the-world-to-see type, so you'll simply have to take my word for it. Or gather evidence on your own, which I intend to provide you forthwith.
I am a poet, so what better way to begin anew than to begin with what I am? I present to you two poems, one that's just begun stretching its legs, and one I bring with me from a self-imposed exile from that other land far, far away.
Lonely, I
I am not the lonely of the last leaf,
holding hard to autumn's bony branches.
Nor am I the lonely of the wolf,
howling his love for the fullness of the moon.
I am the lonely of a man
with a bottle of wine and two glasses.
the lonely of a conversation
with nothing but the mountains' echoes for reply.
After the Fall
The evergreens, brave sailors all,
ride full sail into the first snow,
beams bent from proud masts
as they weather the season's storms,
charted on an immutable course toward spring.
The deciduous, already winter-moored,
make of the forest a quiet harbor
where boats rock gently in the breeze.
These are the ships of summer,
all signs of life tucked away
beneath the blizzard's taut tarp
while icicles form stalactites on twiggy spars
and grasp their bony frames.
The earth below, now a sea of frozen waves,
frost-jewels flooded across a new-hushed world.
Cozy, it turns and dreams
beneath its blanket lily-white
waiting still for ever colder nights
when she, the world, the admiral
and her snowy forest fleet
will glimmer as they sail beneath the moonlight.
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