Solstice

In Winter
memory knits old dreams
into cold blankets,
the season mumbles
through frozen smiles,
teeth chatter in their roots
and breath—never frozen
floats away like smoke
on the chill wind.

Spring brought us hope,
a resurrection of hearts
waiting for the first green
to rise and spread
across a flood of tears;

By Summer
we were fearless
as blood ripened in our veins:
We ran bold and reckless
through endless days
and counted our nights
as if they were stars...

By Autumn, though, each falling leaf
whispered a reckoning as it fell
and once again
Winter closes an icy fist
and as the skin tightens
against each knuckle
hearts can turn to sallow white,
but each breath drawn
is a moment gained
in this journey toward
the light.

Prayer

Be with me in this life.
Take my hand— Not to guide
but call it a gesture
of confidence,
a sign of faith.
Swallow your questions.
Hold fast:

I know where we are going.

If the Rose can live
in each moment
unfurling its petals
to catch the morning light,
alone and unburdened with hope,
unchained by belief or dogma
without gods,
without history,
without judgment ...
Then we, too,
we could live in this morning
as the world unfurls around us
when a sea of sunlight rises
and spills over mountainous
bedsheets and spreads outward
in a widening wave
washing over the floors
clearing a path for us
to navigate through
whatever brief storms
we meet
in this swirling ocean of time.

The Heart Is a Home For Fools

The heart is a home for fools,
for lovers and children
who break all the rules;
for strawberry girls
in blue gingham dresses,
the heart never knows,
it only guesses.

Some say the heart is cruel,
an out of hand joker,
an April Fool;
For Saturday boys
with chestnut eyes,
the heart never knows,
it only lies.

I think the heart is a dance,
I don't know the steps
but I still take a chance.
I dream about swinging
and dream about swaying ...

The heart
knows its partner,
and it's not saying.

© Paul Wittenberger 21 June 2017

Terminus

Here
there are
no hearts
but those
of broken
lovers,
no sex
but the
talk of
times
passed by;
no hidden
secrets to
discover,
nor tears
that have
not yet
been cried.

© Paul Wittenberger, 1 February 2017

Millenials

All you bright ones

born to be torrential: 

In the wake of your passing, 

confound the masters;

Make real what they could only dream.

Make noise, 

Disturb equanimity,

Replace what is 

with what could be;

Take words or a brush.

Take music only you can hear:

Remember each sunrise yet to come 

not the moon-fall ending of another age.

© Paul Wittenberger

Untitled

You who made a thousand angels blossom out of the night sky,

who banished ghosts from the cob-webbed corners of a darkened room,

who could stem the flow of time or dismiss it like an unruly child …

Where are you now?

Where are the mountains you once embraced,

those trees upon which you etched your name for eternity to measure?

Where once you sailed, is your boat now adrift and rudderless,

no longer searching for a harbor but seeking only open seas ?

Where now the hands that labored, and where the questioning mind?

Was it exile? Banishment? A broken heart?

What relentless straw was it, broke the camel's back?

And how is it I feel your presence even in your absence?

© Paul Wittenberger, 3/23/2017