Time moves on

And I don't miss

Most of what

Is past and gone,

But my regret

For naps I missed

Goes on and on

And on.

There are times I wonder

If I understand which me

Is the costume

Or if any me is

Anything like real,

Because I pull out every me

And try it on for size

When I need a different me,

A fresher set of eyes,

Or an alternate perspective.

Those are useful all the time!

But they never know things that I don't!

They all seem to be mine.

So maybe all of them are real,

And costumes are pretend,

Or maybe every costume

Is just me in the end.

A whole year is behind us,

A whole new year ahead,

A thousand possibilities

Swimming in my head,

A thousand things

I have to do--

Can I go back to bed?

Eyes wild, my youngest child

Stared at her sister and at me.

"You have a death wish, both of you!

No more adventuring!" but we

Could see the road ahead of us,

And so we planned, and so we schemed,

To sink our teeth into each one

Of the adventures we had dreamed.

The wind winds up

To throw a punch

That knocks the rain

From silver clouds

Which, lighter, wend

Their lazy way

Up and up and up and out,

Until they're thinner than the air

And they wind up everywhere.

Give me all the colors of a candy store

Scattered by the handful on a green grass field.

While blueberry skies, fruit punch at the horizon,

Darken into plum nights with lemondrop stars,

A jawbreaker moon cracked into a crescent

Nestles too late into marshmallow clouds

As sweet as meringue. Look down! It will be

Reflected like a memory in a candy glass sea.

The blackberry hedge

That marked the edge

Where one world

Met another

Was riddled with tunnels

Just right for a child

And much too small

For her mother.

She hadn't cut them.

She didn't know who

Had whittled them

Away,

But deep in the briar

Where she couldn't go

Smaller things slept

Through the day.