Day left the world too soon to say goodbye

Yet as I wandered 'lone and 'fraid to see

Heav'nly curtains revealed a dusky sky

And 'neath its vastness stood a single tree

Its branches bare and limbs gnarled with age

Strove to pierce the air and breach the gap

'Twixt life and death but perished in the stage

Of trying and so dying stopped and snapped

As I approached I wondered at the plight

And endless drive to win and to survive

That all creatures living in dark or light

Will simply fight tonight to stay alive

I think no ma'er the struggle of today

Still sorrow on the morrow goes away

Striped green pants and bean green eyes

Quick of wit and small of size

Fuzzy cat ears, stripes, and a scratch on his forehead

from when I tried to give him a haircut instead

We were best friends forever

We did everything together

Swinging, running, jumping, playing

Drawing on the sidewalk, hanging from the railing

Swimming, hiking, unwrapping gifts at Christmas

Pretending we were princesses with our silk scarves trailing behind us

As I grew up I wondered what

Made me talk and he not

Why was it that, while I could do things alone

He could do nothing but stay at home

An unmoving statue in a museum

A dumb block in a Roman colloseum

I wish it wasn't so, I'd lament

But what could I say, we were different

Until one day I noticed something odd

A flicker of motion around his paw

Could this be real? My limbs grew numb

My heart beat a giant bass drum

He wanted to explain his crime

Why he'd been silent all this time

But it was not so, and since that day

I couldn't believe him the same way

That German toy cat named Findus

Is now just a stuffed toy on the shelf

And all that believing is behind us.

The moon emits such pure silver light that you can taste it on your tongue. The frosty air coats your tongue and burns your lungs and you can cling to the solidness, the solemnity, and the stillness of the painted world around you. Breathe it in, taste it, and live forever in one moment. Grasses the color of night poke their slender bodies above the snow, bent over and sleeping, waiting for warmth and melting snow and crickets. A million stars gaze upon you as you gaze upon them, awestruck, in the darkness. You could lose yourself in eternity without the sound of your leather-clad feet making the frozen snow go skish skish skish as you stomp up the hill, walking the border of dark and light. envying the King of Silence who can glide across it on owl's wings without disturbing a single snowflake. It is cold and you are alone, but you are as much a part of this painting as the owl, the snow, the night, the moon, and the patient grass. You are a member of this eternal beauty.

You squeeze your eyes shut. The color of you see is almost black. As you relax your eyes and let in more light, the color lightens to magenta, then a dark, warm red. You hear the sound of creaking metal as you swing backward and tuck your striped leggings underneath the plastic seat. The calluses on your hands protect you from blisters as you grasp the metal chains holding you up, but they don't stop the chains from pinching you. Ouch! You grab another bit of the chain, one with smooth plastic on it. Your eyes are still shut, but you can see the red is changing to orange. As the swing reverses direction, you throw your legs out in front of you and lean back, letting your hair brush the tickling grass and hairy poppy plant behind you. A giggle escapes your chest. You lean further back and smile toothily, let the whole world around you see the big gap where your front tooth used to be. Orange changes to yellow, than yellowish green. The swing keeps going forward, back, creak, forward, back, creak... as you continue to pump your legs, going higher and higher. You could be an astronaut and be flying past the moon now. Or you could be a bird and have feathery wings to take you to the sky. You let your eyes open a little more and you can see the tiniest ray of sunlight, turned skinny and long like a needle. You look away from the sun because you remember that it hurts to look at it fully. Plus, your sister told somebody was blinded, and you don't want that to happen. Instead you let your eyes see the azure sky, an ocean with no waves or ships, a portal to outer space. The atmosphere. Ten thousand feet up there is a white stripe and an airplane, and if the people flying to Seattle looked just right, they would see you, a little dot swinging far down below near a little toy house that's too small to even play with. The sky is just so blue in summer.

It's almost Christmas

The trees are aglow

Children are laughing

Gloves covered in snow

Surrounded by friends

Lonely as can be

She watches the joys

Of festivities

Other people dance

Other people kiss

Santa can't grant her

her one Christmas wish

Can she be dreaming?

Is this really true?

She fell in a trance

Her eyes focused on you

Your smile lit her world

Better than tree-lights

that warm up the heart

on cold Christmas nights

She laughed when you said

You didn't believe

In the power of mistletoe

On Christmas Eve

Her laugh was so sweet

Your heart beat so fast

In this rich moment

you wished it would last

Hands met and hearts met

'Neath red and green boughs

Your face and her face

met in the shadows

She's no longer lonely

because her one wish

Was this moment, this Christmas,

With you... and this kiss.