Reach out and feel what should be yours by right; 
The cadence of a song that none have heard, 
The measure of a breath that's full and light 
Along a shore: a lonely boat, a bird --  

And how you came to be where you are not: 
The fuller you become a passing ghost 
That all have seen and equal all, forgot, 
A missing sign atop a broken post -- 

But you remember hope -- it was your claim 
When everything you didn't know still glowed, 
And so much seemed in reach, both love and fame, 
While paying back much more than ever owed --  

  Our slipping grasp on all that missing peace, 
  Midst waves that ever lessen, never cease

The vale, the hidden tear, the secret cove; 
The amnesty declared before the war -- 
The many nights you've knocked upon his door 
In hope of finding one last treasure trove 

The cry of seagulls far across the sound 
Has brought you to this time, this place, this grief 
And left you wanting someting like belief 
And wind and sky where you've known only ground 

My friend, no one should tell you what to feel: 
Desires rain on heart and head and lap 
With reason simply acting like a map 
For where we all must go to buy, or steal

  The measure of our minutes, with its span -- 
  For lives are never really built to plan 
  

The day has come and gone, and so has he.

The light now slanting in is old and gray:
It chides the night in gentle mockery,
And bids the youngish man awhile to stay.

The boy who roamed these halls those years ago:
He lengthened, broadened, moved out of his shell;
He didn’t need direction from a man
Who treated family grim, and no one well.

But once this place was busy with success –
And with eyes closed he hears the sounds again:
How pride was once a fortress of excess,
And blackened hearts admired among men.

His father’s life: a pyrrhic victory:
That day has come and gone,
now so
has he

she colored in the flowers of intent 
so carefully, between the flowing lines 
that disappeared behind the smearing blots: 
an exercise in freedom from confines. 

she whirled along the river in her mind 
that flowed from every feeling, every pore, 
and watched the ducks that swam along in peace, 
whose labor seemed like love and less like chore 

than those around her: those they call adults. 
who never saw the colors (or the chance) 
to ebb and flow -- the running to-and-fro 
that are a key to every sacred dance. 

  she colored and she painted as she flew 
  beyond the gray, and out among the few.