Three Poems

Three  Poems

Hummingbird

At the tip of my nose

there is something sweeter

than any earthly perfume,

yet I cannot smell it.

Every time my eyes blink

a vision appears

of splendor beyond imagining;

I see it not.

At the ends of my fingers

is a touch filled with love

deeper and truer than any devotion

I can conceive.

Yet my hands hang loose

connecting with nothing.

If I turn around,

it is behind me.

If I look over my right shoulder,

it hides at my left.

There is nothing for me to do.

You will show yourself

when you wish.

I know you are here,

hiding in music I can’t hear,

loving me

as the lover I have never found,

obscuring yourself

in the clarity I have sought

but not achieved.

Sometimes I am discouraged,

but not deterred.

You are here, you are here,

waiting for me to stop the drama.

I can’t find you by any effort,

though you embrace me like a coccoon.

I can’t smell you, see you, touch you,

catch you, hold you,

love you, discern you,

sense you in my breathing,

achieve you in my dying.

I can only exist as I find myself,

nothing more.

You would not have made me this way

unless it was your will to do so.

You would not hide yourself

so close to me,

unless you intended yourself to be found.

Hunted By The Hawk

Make joy from stones.

Make wit from mud,

make humor from blood.

The tiny finch flies crazily,

for the sheer fun of it,

though it knows, each morning,

that it’s hunted by the hawk.

We too, each morning,

are hunted by the hawk.

 No Title

I wish I was still young and beautiful.

I am glad, however, that I am not the person

I was, when I was young and beautiful.

For a while, I didn’t recognize myself

when I looked in the mirror.

Who is this man,

whose hair has fallen out,

who grunts when he gets out of bed,

who limps where he once danced?

Then, I began to

accommodate to what a life really is,

to what a person can become,

to what I have become.

I still look at the young and beautiful,

I still envy the wildness of their feelings,

but pity the wildness of their feelings.

I have been gored soundly and with

thudding impact by the untamed bull of life. 

When I was young and beautiful,

I was cruel. 

When I could dance,

I danced for attention,

not for love. 

Now, occasionally, some rhythm

takes me, and I still undulate,

a few steps, back and forth.

Those few steps are worth

more than every dance I danced

when I was young and beautiful.