Excerpt from "Joy"

...Your strength is a sling for broken hope.

A tow rope for the ship with blown sails.

A broad shoulder safe enough for wailing.

It is praise for effort when all I can see is tainted with failing.

It is an honest-to-God letter waiting in the mail - 

on fingerprinted paper, the way it was - a written choir.

Your joy is the butterfly painting yellow

that black aftermath of fire.

It is the christmas lights of December planting starry hope -

and the resolute daffodil shoots fighting the snow.

The solo footprints in the sand,

when I can no longer find the bones to stand.

When the dark forest swallows the path,

and all is lost as the temperature drops -

like a child’s first star sighting, 

You are the cabin aglow.