Awakened this morning

to the warmth of the sun

beneath a sky of grey

it was gifted to me

a bird's eye view

since I had lost my way

Standing small

in fields of wheat

my heart would barely hold

I saw ahead

a faded chevy

parked for getting old

To my left

a nordic man

implied and though not said

no emotion

nor word was spoken

but a message in my head

everything of you is known

yet, no passion

from his eyes

it seemed as if

my mercy pleas

had fallen from the skies

Then a child

with curls of silk

stepped forth to pull my wrist

she pointed up

so I would see

of sunbeams through the mist

exuding warmth

from top to marrow

not of flesh and bone

an open vein

poured liquid gold

to say I'm not alone

Now I may rest

the clouds have parted

and with them grains of grey

that I may wake

in fields foretold

beneath the light of day

Lessons In Wheat

Oil on canvas

By Dana M Yope

The train I travel in my dreams,

the one I ramble best,

is steel that cuts me far from here

and heads the way out west

They say, you can't go home again,

I used to wonder why,

so I took the time to visit you,

I knew I had to try

I'd hoped you would be happy

like I knew you should;

find a life in our old town

the way I never could

Maybe I'd begin again,

start and end with you,

see a face I once knew under

marquee lights of blue

I wondered if a town called home,

would call to me instead

and be a place where I'd return

and paint in shades of red

I'd love to make a life with you in reruns from the past,

walk along and not ahead

with hope to make it last

But time has changed the place I knew

or maybe it changed me;

misty dreams and lofty plans,

in endings we can't see

Many times I close my eyes

as if I want to test,

the town I visit in my mind

and one remembered best;

by seven tons of steel,

rocking it out west

and gently lulling through the night

the dreams I lay to rest.

picked up the phone tonight

can't remember when

been a long time since i've heard your voice

don't know where you've been

listened awhile and it was clear

you've been searching for something

a life on the road played out loud

kept you from hearing the one thing

heard the words of an angel

is what you said to me

but all that i was doing

was getting you to see

the feelings i had,

i left on the side of the road

of no return,

when the nights drank up the truth with lies

in the morning i came to learn

sometimes you have to make a choice

or maybe it makes you

picked up the phone tonight

and it was then i knew

heard the words of an angel

can't remember when

been a long time since you've heard my voice

don't know where i've been

listened awhile and it was clear

i've been searching for something

life in the lights became a crowd

kept me from knowing the one thing

heard the voice of an angel

so glad you called on me

reminding me of this love thing

and getting me to see

He's four on the floor

A legend in his own eyes

Burnin' rubber soul

Street Rod of a man

His rear view magic muscle

Tattooed in the tread

Of smoke and mirrors

Like a great illusionist

He thinks he's driving

In a place where stardust dreams,

stoke fires too hot for the touch starved;

come melted wings of pixie dust,

in the heights where our stars

are carved.

In a million illumined wishes from earth, like fireflies eluding capture;

they're a gossamer flight,

on the tail of a kite,

swept up in a blazoned rapture.

Arisen against a curtain of black,

and strewn with surprising twist,

constellations once pressed of diamond ore, bleed in a scarlet mist.

Ember flecks and stippled burn,

are the remnants of fear we allay;

by seeing in rust, the color of trust,

out from the ash of decay.

Tender things and renderings,

our falling stars display,

knowing that with the fire, it brings,

a sun who governs the day.

In stardust light of paper white

there rubs a revelatory burn;

in perfect space between

still and flight,

is a place where dreams return.

*Credit photo: D.M. Yope

Butterfly installation/ATX

I carved in a tree

the letters of we

but the aged old timber was hollow

You wrote in the wind

what you intend

but a storm blew and I could not follow

What of the sand

where you took my hand

pressing a silhouette heart

A rush of the water

like sheep for the slaughter

tore riptides of death do us part

You want to know

where it will go

the ebb tide of you and me

Like chasing a current

where waters run errant

some things are not meant to be.

Happy are weekends I paint in the splatters

a life while imperfect says that it matters

pondering on Sunday like a Wyeth in wheat

a favorite bound book and the dog at my feet

More distant the days of Piglet and Pooh

the heart of a bear, Robin and Roo

the wisdom of Owl and happiest lots

peppered in always their quandary of thoughts

It's simple things really, like pearls in the rain

their droplets from puddles of unlikely pain

where yesterday's clouds held the tears of my face

now rain over me from a heavenly place

not counting for sorrow in things where I lack, but here as I lay in a night without black

dreaming where yellow strikes in staccato

her peek in my yet unopened tomorrow.

*Painting: Andrew Wyeth "Distant Thunder"

1961

Even one light beam

through a darkened

cathedral forest

can spark a

dead leaf

on fire