Stolen Seasons the musical

You came to me last night in dream,

I greeted you as was our way.

You leant down to me as I lay

and gently kissed my open mouth.

I felt your kiss surge through my heart

and lace its spell about my feet

and enter in the earth so deep

that I forgot I was asleep.

This dream that drew me in its keep

seduced me from the dawning day.

Day tempted me with morning sun

and tried to steal your kiss away.

I fought to stay, pushed off the day,

while sunlight claimed me as her own,

and still I fought for gentle sleep,

wanting you and wanting peace.

Escaping day with sudden flight,

I turned away and chose the night.

I gladly left the world of light—

the dream, though futile, drew me near.

I left my life, embraced the dream

where you had so awakened me.

I made my choice forever sealed,

choosing you and choosing dreams..

The wind so fierce,

the snowflakes fair,

and winter’s song

is everywhere.

The air so cold,

the snow so deep;

the hint of spring

so bittersweet.

A stand of bud,

a branch outstretched,

resisting winter’s

icy breath.

The sun now warm,

the air now sweet,

bringing winter’s

slow defeat.

I feel my heart

lift like a song.

My breath returns

in springtime thaw.

Yet breath and life

renew the pain

of never seeing

you again.

I long for winter’s

dreamlike sleep;

my thoughts of you

so bittersweet.

O Canada, yes we’ll be coming;

If we stay here, we’ll end up slumming

With every Donald, Dick and Harry

Who made our Hallowe’en so scary.

Canada, land to the north,

Please accept our plighted troth.

Those yokels who spewed hate and froth;

Let them remain while we go forth!

O Canada, please say we’re friends:

As racists Rebel-yell, “We win!”

We can’t explain the phenomenon

Of what it took to hoist this moron

To the Office he now ascends.

He tricked his voters who knew so little,

Perplexed their brains with lie and riddle,

Harangued the press with whimper and outrage;

His reality show became wall-to-wall coverage.

As “pussy grabbers” celebrate,

We remember the days when we worked to create

A fairer world (kind of like yours),

So we could become a better State.

In short, we’d like to emigrate.

O Canada, O Shiny Nation,

We’re waiting for your invitation.

... And waiting ...

What! You do not want us there?

Can’t qualify for free healthcare?

You advise we stay in place,

Wage peace with each and every race,

Melt down the guns we all must have,

Stop worshipping our golden calves.

You say this mess is what we’ve sown:

The craziest country the world has known.

Call up Musk and contact Mars:

Activate the Star Wars Bar,

Find a Wookie and email NASA—

We need a new world we can master. After all,

We’ve had such bleeding success with ours—

Can’t wait to fly those flying cars,

Excelsior and Talley-Ho—

Into outer-space we’ll go.

There’s a whole new world to colonize,

So fire up the Enterprise

And climb on board with shouts and cries—

We’ll start a mad rush to the skies!

We’ll reap the wealth, enslave the masses

(While carefully covering our asses)

And leave this racist war-torn dump

To the Hunger Games and Donald Trump.

Your friends called you every day

when I believed you were my love.

They said, “Come over, let’s get crazy.”

And I knew you would never say,

“Not this time, my Love awaits.”

So you’d come home too late, too hazy.

You’d come to bed, your feet were lead,

your words were slurred but still I heard

your cruel remarks snake through the darkness

as we lay. And all my feeling drained away

and numbed the love that you were wasting,

all my love that you were wasting.

I alone and I awake

lay in the dark and watched you ache,

but could not help you heal your pain

because you would not show me how.

And I not knowing what to say,

imagined we‛d have better days

and time went by.

Each night I lay beside your corpse

(that was not dead but did not speak)

and breathed the poison you had tasted—

all those nights when you were wasted.

At last I saw what we’d become

and dreaded what was yet to be.

And as time passed, I found I’d changed:

I left the bed where we had lain;

I left our house, left you your pain,

and found I loved myself again.

I left your side while demons cried

because my love for you had died.

I know your friends still call and say,

“Hey come over, let’s get crazy,”

and I know you will not say no,

and I know you will always go

to live in mist and foggy schemes

and drift through life in opiate dreams.

I remember all those nights,

those nights I wish I could forget,

those nights when hateful words were said,

those nights we shared that wretched bed.

Though I’m alive and you’re still dead,

I’m haunted by the love we wasted...

We’re born alone, we die alone,

hope alone, cry alone.

I’ve wandered through these rooms alone;

slept alone, dreamed alone.

The loneliest time I’ve ever known

was when I was with you.

I remember how it felt

when I no longer knew myself.

How could I give myself away

the way I did to make you stay?

The loneliest I’ve ever been

was when I was with you.

(bridge)

If I mentioned my desire

how quickly you’d put out the fire.

Hate to think of how I’ve been;

glad I’m not who I was then.

Now I go out all alone

and I come home all alone.

I live alone, I’ll die alone.

It’s not the worst thing I have known.

It’s better than being alone with you.

The loneliest time I ever knew

was when I was with you.

Carpe diem

The space between us moved and bent; it chilled and thawed, it came and went.

Sometimes a fire would ignite, offering its heat and light.

We’d turn and gaze into the glare, two fools pretending not to care.

We’d let the fire die back down, smoldering upon the ground.

Our lives were fraught with hurt and loss, we turned away, ignored the cost;

two fools who came to watch the show, put out the fire, and softly go.

The space between was made of fear, charged with wounds and unwept tears.

We lived life rigid and distraught; we chose defeat more than we ought.

We preferred to be apart; we would not risk a fragile heart.

We watched as passion came and went, bored, depressed, indifferent.

We were confused; false was true. We knew not what we thought we knew.

We chose the haven of decay; we wasted yet another day.

We were bitter, numb and dead, with monsters hiding in our beds.

Hypnotized, we tried to care, yet we remained adrift and scared.

We’d meet each other’s eyes and stare, two fools pretending we weren’t there.

We were the dopes obsessed with dreams, so lost in unproductive schemes,

consigned to live in want and dread, exploring whom to blame instead;

we chose to live resentment’s curse, and thus we spent our time on earth.

distracting sensibility,

confronting possibility,

a monumental entity

of fragile beauty, filigree

of leaves and branches,

cliffs and trees

and paths into obscurity:

a mountain stands ahead of me.

I live in isolation’s land

Where wounded heart will ne’er be well.

Where what we are and were reside,

I live alone and love has died.

There is no blame that’s thine or mine

And though thou dost not seek me thus,

Or live for love and court this lust,

Or dread the dreary drought ’til meeting —

I want what we shared though fleeting.

I will wear a weight to weigh me down

And I’ll be gone and gone again,

If by drowning I can draw you in.

Though I quit the unrequited quest

I will want thee still in watery death.

Moonstone glows with secret light,

an ember in the August night.

Moon rose in the midnight sky;

reflection made the darkness bright.

We whispered secrets soft and bold

of histories long grown dead and cold.

Wind swept down from glacial snows

left from an ice age long ago.

Light found stone, a softened glow—

lit mountains standing in a row.

Moonlight struck a sacred space,

revealing your warmth and grace.

I believed you saw me, too,

and offered you my soft caress.

But what I knew eluded you;

your shadow fell upon my breast.

We stood close as breezes blew—

was love ignited quick and true?

Now I know how dreams can fade,

and wonder if you were afraid.

Was I a fool or was I mad

to feel this love I’d never had;

but love was flame under the sand

flung carelessly from your cold hand.

Your refusal killed the glow—you as cold as winter snow.

Rejection burned me like a brand

and startled, I withdrew my hand.

Believing love well placed in you,

believing you had known it, too,

I saw hot embers clear and bright,

and shooting stars in starlit night;

but you wore Moonstone’s deathly hue,

cold as ice and ghostly blue.

Quietly I played my part,

silenced as you broke my heart.

chorus

We stood close as shrill winds blew—

was love ignited quick and true?

Sometimes when I sing this song,

I believe I was not wrong.

1. Gardening, like writing poetry, is a solitary pursuit.

2. All people who talk to themselves are not crazy—some of us are poets.

—Author

have you ever noticed how a daylily stem

(when you aren’t looking)

grows about six inches taller and makes a bud that wasn’t there

but only when you’re not looking,

and then when you come back a little later, the bud has opened?

or how a peony bud is just about to open

and so you stare at it, thinking it will open while you watch

but it won’t, not as long as you keep watching—

and then you come back later and just one petal has loosened?

and so you stare some more and it just sits there laughing at you

so you go and do something else and come back

and it’s full-on blooming, big as a cabbage?

do you wonder then if you had just kept staring

whether it would have sat there looking back at you

until, just out of pure stubbornness and spite, it died?

or maybe it was just playing.

sometimes I watch the clematis vines, imagining I can watch them climb

like time-lapsed photography, right there in front of me,

and I can watch their buds becoming plump and ripe

and they will open while I watch, into perfect purple pinwheels

like an animated cartoon.

but sometimes the joke is just better.

and don’t even get me started on robins’ eggs.