Paper Wings

With paper wings Icarus
disobeyed Daedalus;
contraptions and doo-dads
flaunting the explicit intent
to soar sky high.

On that craftsman's
workbench lay self discipline;
overlooked by Icarus in his
mad dash for flight...
its absence, perhaps, his fall.

To fly was to be free, a
world on its own!
Grounded life
ain't so shabby, though;
at least it's stable.

To fly forever is
just the illusion of freedom;
to never fly is the
illusion of stability,
a hollow life.

With paper wings Icarus
came to know life and death;
and to think, self-discipline
had lay there on the work
bench all along.

Season of Life

The world is a delicate and new entity;

an earth slowly awakening from frozen slumber

shrugging off the frosty shawl of winter

exposing a once barren land renewed of it's youth.

Spring air is perfume so intoxicating

and sweet that one can't blame hummingbirds or

bumblebees for their lusty pursuit of budding

cherry blossoms and tulips.

Colorado night skies are a little more heavy now

long missed humidity soaks the Front Range while

the oncoming explosion of life, a fragrant scent and

bristling chill, whistles in the wind.

It's my twentieth visit from the season of life

and I meet it with strong emotion, for life is

sweet and constant until a comma, a pause,

a single breath ends what we know.

When will that breath steal me away

from this life? How many more seasons

will I be given? How could I know?

Why would I want to?

All I know is just as surely as Spring came

it will leave once again, giving way to that season

of nostalgia and eventually fading into a

crisp Colorado Autumn.

The world sleeps, regrouping once a again

in the hollow depth of Winter before starting Spring

anew, continuing a cycle that offers to add another year

to my tally for the simple price of living.

So I'll live; life was the only gift ever really given to any of us

and I'll live, confident that comma, that pause,

that last rebel breath knows where to find me

when the final grain has fallen from my hourglass.

When that time comes I'll greet death like an old friend

and walk with the Reaper to the snowy edge of the Winter,

through the forest of the unknown's foggy haze

and into an unfamiliar world to meet another season of life.

Where did you go?

Where did you go?
A simple shell abandoned,
Your soul's schism from it's home,
sent into the dark unknown.
Answers are like opinions:
everybody has one and they're
all probably wrong, yet I'm
still searching.

Because of this, I cannot relegate
him to the past tense. He is not a was,
but an is, an idea perhaps, a concept
I've clung to since. None of this makes
sense, but emotion never seems to
piece itself together into a coherent
statement of eloquence. Where words
fail, I feel.

I would think that I'd feel IT, though,
as a loved one's tugged
from his mortal throne, and yet,
alas, it was not so. Curiously
I still feel HIM, like the soft blow of
the wind against my skin, like the
glow of the sun. Because I'm feeling I know
that the healing has begun.

If Life...

If life was a masterpiece, he was the artist,

and his personality, the paint that adheres

to the canvas of our memory.

For who but Wilson could have created a mosaic

that will be imprinted in my mind for the span

of my lifetime?

If life was an ocean, he was the captain,

guiding us through the darkest of hours with

constant reassurances and natural Southern poise.

For who but Wilson could have calmed stormy seas

with a smile that exposed a shining soul on fire

with a deep and abiding love of life?

If life was a classroom, he was the teacher,

a man who was always there, an unwavering light

exuding happiness and care.

For who but Wilson could have helped me rediscover

the kindergartner inside through his playful

antics and child-like curiosity?

If life was a garden, he was the gardener,

tending to his loved ones with unexpected

intensity, watering each of his relationships passionately.

For who but Wilson could have brought so

many bulbs into full bloom in the midst of

a cold winter?

And if life wasn't life, he would still be here,

but life remains life, that much is clear.

Every day gets harder, comprehending that you're gone

May you rest forever, Willy, in the peaceful waters of Roatan.