Still Vulnerable

That tiny baby in your arms

Exerting tiny baby charms

Plants relationship and family seeds

Teaching you to meet his needs

And so begins the endless dance

Between control and happenstance

The baby learns and the baby grows

Into a child who uses what a child knows

To interpret expression-- smile or frown

When he wants holding, but you set him down

Then as a teen exerting truth or guile

He’ll coax a dollar and draw a smile

By the passions felt and passions gorged

The soul will be massaged and forged

The love it’s craved and the love it’s caught

The hate it’s feared and hate it’s fought

Jealousy, valor, envy and hope

All inform of how he’ll cope

All that he encounters, all he feels

Forever affect how he thinks and deals

Experiences while just a child

Sway him for a long, long while

Even as an adult aware and free

Part of him still vulnerable on Mama’s knee

Creek and Shadows

I’m walking in the shadows

While my feet splash through the shallows

Of the creek that trickles through my memories

I listen to the soft, warm breeze

Whispering through the autumn leaves

Gilded gold, yet valueless to thieves

The leaves keep drifting down

Obscuring the direction I came from

Until I recognize the hum

Slithering into my remembrance

That noisy, cold New York embrace

Where only buildings in the sky

Throw shadows outside my mind’s eye

I came there following a man

Who didn’t really give a damn

And through my broken-hearted hell

Decided, the best revenge was living well

Here where he thought he was king

By outdoing him, I’d reverse the sting

In New York, New York I stayed

Accepting all the accolades

Accorded me as I rose on and up

Drinking from successes’ cup

Until I forgot that I stayed here

Just to prove a point, then disappear

When people asked me what I planned

I’d say that there would come a time

For land with a creek, wild and wide

With Andalusian horses for me ride

Copses of different types of trees

Green grass growing past my knees
 

So, I think it's time that I moved on

It no longer matters what I’ve won

For I have nothing left to prove

It’s time to pack my car and move

Off the asphalt and concrete

To a place with soft earth beneath my feet

I Climb the Hills

I moved west to the very edge

The ocean pulled me with the tide

And I feel at home and sheltered here

With the mountains rising on one side

Yet there is still a space within

As wide as that flat prairie

So I go back from time to time

But not from fall to February

When I miss the snow, I climb the hills

Past the treeline to the sky

And as I’m sliding down again

I feel like I could fly

I once thought everyone felt the same

That they envied me for moving here

You disabused my misconceptions

The things I love, you don’t hold dear

You left , believing I would follow

I just laughed and shook my head

Still, I wished and dreamed
That you'd stayed here with me instead

When I miss you, I climb the hills

Past the treeline to the sky

And as I’m sliding down again

No one can see me if I cry

Like everyone out there

I miss what I have loved and lost

But I’ve learned not to dwell

On my grief, my pain, my loss

Instead I count my blessings

Abundant as the autumn leaves

Though I don’t go to church on Sunday

That message is still what I believe

When I want to pray, I climb the hills

Past the treeline to the sky

And as I’m sliding down again

I feel like I could fly