Word Garden

Five years in between

2011-11-14T22:14:00.000-08:00

What is the maximum distance from which you can love a human being?
Answer: less than a millimeter. And without a name.
-Lars Gustafsson

I knew that you wanted to say more
I ignored you
deliberately
and laughed loudly so you wouldn't have a chance,
not to say more
I know you wrote about me in that poem
so I chose not to look at it
After all five years is a long time
Long enough to make a city unrecognizable
and the old places
familiarly strange

There is a maximum distance from which you can love a human being

it is not 8490 air miles and
five years in between

writing with a red pen

2011-04-14T23:09:00.000-07:00

That exhilarating feeling of
f
a
l
l
i
n
g
comes so easy
so easy.
It is in small
scrawly
words
It is because you wrote with a red pen.

All that we are asked

2011-04-03T20:53:00.001-07:00

For Chunhui

I heard, you are unhappy
so I looked high and low on youtube, for songs,
because they say music soothes the soul.
Then I combed through words of poems to find something that will comfort you
sometimes words are so frail, and our experiences so hard, full of shapes jutting out
I found nothing that will soften our falls in life
the thing that jabs is still there, a thorn caught in the flesh
and sadness seems to permeate everything.
I guess, I want to tell you, that though I can't find the right words to cheer you
today when I jogged around the lake, the sun setting over the dusky sky
fog rising up over the water
I watched the dying light burn up the crown of trees
gilding everything with that flame
and I thought
everything is worth it, our pains,
all for moments like this
as I grow older, I begin to think
these are the only moments of greatness we are capable of
we are not asked to give anything, all we have to do is
to witness the richness this world offers

then just as suddenly darkness onsets

whistling down the wind

2011-03-11T19:12:00.000-08:00

Though her jesses were my dear heart-strings, I'ld whistle her off, and let her down the wind,

I made a promise today to forget you
forget the inventory of the things about you I have kept stocked for too long
the way you hunch over peering out into the dark road at the wheel
the way you hold your pen, half loose, tilting at a wide angle, as if
the lines they form on paper came straight out of a fine line between the shoulder and the pen
the piece of driftwood I saw that you must have seen some beauty and grace in
out of a wide expanse of sand, something ordinary must have moved you
wiping the evening dew of the windshield with a pack of cigarette
all these things
I promised to forget

I must have loved you even though I'm still to prideful to admit that it is possible
to love someone you don't know
it's hard not to fall for an illusion when it fits my own
but I must have, and in ways must still do, if I still keep this list in my mind

I should have thanked you, I would have liked to
if I had a chance, I would do it properly
say the words
because you took me aside and gave me the best thing that anyone has ever given me
you told me I was good
and I, for the first time, believed it.

I have never believed in compliments even though I like them
because they have always been mere civility, but when you told me
you thought I can do this
I believed you.

And I have never looked back since

Sometimes, I think that is what love is
all it is, is just one moment
when everything in your life changes
branching out in a new direction you have never seen or even imagined
it is just one moment
when you see yourself and the world you inhabit in a strange new light, as if someone has given you new eyes

Every thing I will ever write from that moment on will be a lovesong
to you, and myself
and I will never forget that
the moment you took me outside the class room and told me that what I have offered was good
and that I can give something of value

so I will forget the regret and all those other things
but never what you, in your generosity has offered me
what was true, or false, no longer matter
because I have taken your gift and made it my core
It is a strength I have found that I will stand on for years to come
even after the list of you have become things beyond memory
what you have given to me will stand, the bedrock of my core and of all the things I hope to come
where it will flourish and blossom, a fount of a gift that will live on and give
over and over and over and over

Happiness

2011-03-07T21:47:00.000-08:00

is a box of wife cake brought by hand by a distant friend from Hong Kong smashed to pieces then a walk in the rain behind a boy sing-mumbling off-key on his way home and the sprinkling drizzle coming out of the blackness golden confettis in the lamp light

secret of stars

2011-02-28T23:00:00.000-08:00

There are days of drudgery dragging on by foot minute by minute.
then there are nights like this
when my hands turn paper

past the Bart station
at the intersection of the lights
there the 280 stretches on endlessly into the night
wave after wave of lights gleaming red then gold
like a tide

the cafe semi-dark, lit by garden spotlights and the word cafe ruby red
the seats in shadows of quietude, of conversations now calmed to a silence that radiates
past the bend
for an instance
no cars came
only the sudden unfolding of stars, a studded veil of heaven's morse code in diamond light
there was nothing to decipher
only this inexplicable beauty and the trembling of my heart

I picked out the brightest star through the vein of winter twigs on the brink of life
and thought of the world as bursting with secrets
how I wished you happiness at that moment.
right then it was not a shame to think of you

and this quiet night throbing with promises. the knowledge came with such clarity
my heart shuddered,
that happiness, is a moment of darkness
behind which the meaning of stars is suddenly revealed
in all
its inexplicable glory.

no ode

2011-02-16T20:07:00.001-08:00

Why am I so lonely for companionship that I will look up random strangers and envy them?

Sometimes, there are voids inside that even the best stories, no matter how beautiful the language, just won't fill.

When I was young. I thought

This feeling will go away when I find someone. Besides you don't care when you are young

all of life's possibility stretches out endlessly.

But now. Even the best of words won't console me,

Nor the moon. Nor the night. Nor the distant sound of laughter

This cold night.

February

2011-02-07T13:48:00.000-08:00

It's almost Valentine's Day
have I ever told you, every year
it makes me want to puke?
the grotesque hearts pasted on every restaurant window
and the rotting roses black along the edge with their ugly thorns
clawing out every vase
I wish worms would eat them all. I do.

People walking around parade the girl or guy on their arm
each proclaiming in fanciful gestures
eat this: loneliness. Eat this.

It is not
that I don't believe in love
worth celebrating.

It is just
that if hearts could be won by
dying flowers cut at the waist
and chocolate hearts hollow in the center
then
I don't know what is what.

Only this.
Loneliness is a dark long corridor
and it is too deep and too black
for red tinsel hearts to shine through
It is a long walk down
a long walk
Narrow--like the infinite gap between bodies in heat.

Now walk in a single file
to the silence that burns like anger in the depth of your being
and turn to smile at the boy next to you
kiss his hand
and tell him you love him.

Yes, I have grown old

2011-01-29T23:34:00.000-08:00

yes, I have grown old
always without knowledge
I watch a child friend of mine turn woman today
and am reminded
that my own stillness is but a relation
to the speed of the world external
from which I had quietly slipped myself
like an envelope
like new skin,

and the ghost of my younger confidence
is a whisper in the wind--
what I hear against the last drops of rain tonight
rapping softly on the window
trying to get back in.

2011-01-13T23:16:00.000-08:00

The moon gapes like a wound tonight, a gash
in the sky
it is the fog drawing its silver screen around shadows of trees
it is all effects, but I thought
again
of you. And how it was all effect; but the moon, it still gaps
like a wound.

Your Big Day

2011-01-09T17:48:00.000-08:00

Today, as I laid in bed, watching the dusky blue, the last of the day
seep through the black of the curtains, illuminating the world with its dim mysterious rays, I wondered
Has it been ten years? Since we made up guessing games
who will be the first? we asked.
and ten years hence, some of us had moved, some passed on, some no longer close friends in the truest sense
has time been kind to us all?
Have we found ourselves, are we proud of our callings?
I told you I cried when I saw your email. I was not exaggerating.
Yes, I did cry.
So, you will be the first, to walk the aisle.
Life is full of mysteries, and I guess its equation will always be one more of questions than of answers
But, the question we threw into the future ten years ago, today, has revealed its answer
Is that what life is? This sowing of a seed, a question into the future?
Will what we have buried with our hearts one day, twenty years down the road bear fruit?
I hope so, my dear friend, I hope so.
And as I watch the dusk blue deepen, and the world transit from a dull day into a brilliant night,
I think, so this is time's gentle and subtle movement across our lives
I hope whatever the future hold for you will be as brilliant
and I will memorize this shade of blue
no, it is not a color of sadness, or the forlorn,
it is the color of questions answered and promises fulfilled, it is a mild hope of foolish girls that had been blessed
I will memorize this shade of blue
and I will bury this trembling wish I have for you in this fragile hour of the day
watch it wash into the dark of a new night
bury it deep
before I turn on the lights.

someone else's sad lines

2011-01-03T22:22:00.000-08:00

Tonight I can write the saddest lines
the words
are not mine
how they caress this still night
equally cold, and, hollow
of the stars, the white moon
and treetops
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
these words are not mine
it is my disease
to crave that which does not belong to me
so that even my sadness
I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
even my sadness
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
I borrow
someone else's
Tonight I can write the saddest lines
it is better that you are someone else's .
Sadness,
when it's mine like all these words I have
ring false
I am not someone
who can write sad lines
I can only taste tears
The same night whitening the same trees.
Ah. yes. I taste tears.

Grinding

2010-12-12T23:14:00.000-08:00

dark dark the night outside, through the window, my face in the light reflected to the runaway sound of the train
and I think
what is love really, other than a compromise, made
out of fear of loneliness. It is not what is hoped for, no roots deep in some life force promised once in poems that I believed in.
It is merely this:
age and society, and bad romance movies
they tell me it is the way to happiness, to fulfilment, and where the soul resides, it will conquer all things: fear, even death
but it is a lie, of course, it is a poor consolation to our true destinies.
What love really is, is this: A vow made in some secret part of the heart, like the old woman in the old story who would one day turn a metal rod into a needle. You grind day after day after day
moment after moment of work
then one day, you wake up to the face of a stranger beside you, and you think, I have loved with the bones of my hand.
This is love. It is a work I have chosen to do day after day. It is the happiness grasped at and pieced together. Stuck together in notebooks or keepsake boxes. I have snatched these moments of light against the darkness. That's when I kiss you again and again, and you wake up and smile at me, and I wonder again, how short these true moments are. And how long those other moments at the mill, praying for the day after a hundred years, the old woman finally holds a needle up to the light.

later

2010-12-05T23:00:00.000-08:00

It was around this time of the year, (wasn't it?) When I made a fool of myself.
I was a fool. To think... oh well what does it matter anyway.
It will not be the first or the last anyway. And you.
I will not be the first or the last either. Just one of those in the middle
forgotten quite easily soon enough. Only,
I take a long time in forgetting.
I will though. Sooner or
later, I say,
always later. Always.

Tonight

2010-12-04T23:15:00.000-08:00

Same old bus ride
through the dark
this cold night
even the lights seem distant and I can't find the right words
but I thought i needed to do something different
take a new route tonight and call it an adventure
but I didn't
did the same thing over
and over
again
I got home and closed the door to mild night air and the jaded moon tired like street lamps
I now know what age is:
it is this lack of adventures, not the desire of,
but the will
to see it through,
And god,
I feel so old tonight.

bloodydon't

2010-11-06T12:59:00.000-07:00

I don't have a knack for poetry.
Words so easily turned bad--like milk, like poems, like milk
garbledtonguetwistedkneeyessiree
See what I mean?
How to take that seriously?
Told to extract meaning and clarity
from abstract
is a poetic command, very zen like
but terrible, unless you're Neruda, but even then
he never did have a sense of humor
knowwhatimeanknowwhatimean?
Yes. That's my point.
Poems---ah. What was I trying to say? not out of anger, or say, a desire for beauty
words turned into art, uneasily--like this, like poems, like that.
There really is no art there. Or there is. Truth be told
I just don't--bloody don't--have a knack for poetry.

October

2010-10-24T11:29:00.000-07:00

Thunder-- drums in the distant
billowing curtains
a mosquito buzzing
lazy Sunday

Music Box Monologue

2010-10-20T21:40:00.000-07:00

I got you Christmas present early. He says.
Don't cry over any broken music box anymore ok?
This one. It is unbreakable. You're going to need an axe for this one.

Cold weather

2010-10-19T22:01:00.000-07:00

makes me think of you
and how
I should have followed you home--
let you ravage me,
because
I would rather have been cheap
than incomplete.

Broken hands

2010-10-15T21:11:00.000-07:00

I am not destined for beautiful things
no
I break them
lose them
with my clumsy hands
clumsy heart

I am careless with fragile things
dropping
breaking

I tried once
it was a music box
on three golden legs
with gilded edges
the pink and cream profile of an English girl with blind marble eyes
I had begged again and again
for my mother to buy
she told me no
I will break it
she said, like it was a fact written in stars
I wouldn't
I wouldn't
I wouldn't

I hid it, in a place no one would find
I look at it every night
afraid for its beauty
and my cursed hands
I would not touch it
so it is nestled
under my mattress
close to my sleeping heart
I said goodbye every day before school
aching fearing
and rushed home to check on it
but my mother was right
no matter how I tried
I came home one day to find it broken in two

The mattress was clean with new sheets
my music box came apart into two
Who did it? Who did it?
I asked over and over
no one answered but blank stares

I kept the broken remains
until all that was left was the metal mechanism that played the tune
a reminder
of twisted hands

I have never believed that I can hold on to anything beautiful after
including you

Sometimes, I think
you are simply too beautiful for me
too beautiful
for broken hands

fist

2010-10-13T09:52:00.000-07:00

The heart
is a stubborn organ
keeping its beat
day after day
after day
For what?

Ondaatje calls it the organ of fire
But it is one of stone
It has no pride
or too much
it keeps secrets tucked away the brain has forgotten

It is mined with spider webs
glisten
only in the morning light
the moths of our fancy
caught fast
throbbing, throbbing

It makes no sounds
excrete no waste
gathering everything like a waste house

And in sadness,
it only makes a single sound

It beats stubborn
clinging
to fond memories
and foolish hopes

They call it a fist

The heart
is a stubborn organ.

this hour

2010-10-06T00:27:00.002-07:00

I
revel in this thick hour of the night
when the world like ink
dips in silence
in a well of possibilities
when the lighted window shines
like a soul exposed
and I
think
of your darkness
and wonder
how are you swimming in this witching hour
between sheets, or pages
are you traveling on dark roads
headlights turned inwards
into the heart
and I write
because that is the only place I still find you
and because
I learnt to love this minute space in between hour hands
when all is silent and
still
when even the heart shudders in the emptiness
waiting
for a sound
I think of buffalos I never saw
and the words I never said
then this silence
heavy like a blanket
so still, my heart aches.

Geography

2010-09-25T09:11:00.001-07:00

I am certain
you never think of me
as I do you

Perhaps for you, it is a matter of geography.

How many fishes are there in the sea?
And how wide the ocean?

The letter you will not read

2010-09-11T11:13:00.000-07:00

Last night, I laid in bed, retracing my steps
decision to decision, to find out how I got where I am
I went as far back as my memory would let me:
if I never met you at the bookstore
and you weren't standing there holding the same book as me,
then,
where would I be?

Even when I was at a young age, I have believed that I have been cursed with the opposite sex,
every boy I ever cared for, always disappeared without goodbyes,
so that I have learnt that it is a way of life,
that I will not get what I want,
that longing does not materialize
and cruelty is the only way to save myself from being broken
but,
you are the exception.

I've never told you about this tree, back in Singapore
before my move across the ocean
it stood lonely on an empty field,
one day struck black by lighting,
became a burnt stump in a black hole,
but it came back, I watched it,
day after day, green taking over black,
suddenly one day, there were three trees.

Last night, when I brawled,
like I regularly do,
even my sister, who I've come to believe is my soul mate,
was on the verge of frustration,
you said: calm down,
and I did.

I've never thanked you, I doubt I ever will,
not like this at least,
and you will not read this, even though it is public,
laid out naked for all to see,
that's just your way, I guess,
of a kind of trust, or oblivion,
I don't know which.

But,
you are the exception.

I'll always remember the boomerang you told me about.
because you are the boy who came back for me
again and again,
even when I turned away from the wind
thinking
I have thrown it as far as I could
but there you are again,
an exception.

Pubic hair dialogue

2010-08-30T00:58:00.000-07:00

He says: Your hair all grows in one direction, it's like communists. You have communist hair.
She says nothing.
He says: Look at my hair, they grow in all directions, they are Americans, individualistic.
Still, she says nothing.

I wrote

2010-08-02T00:03:00.001-07:00

a terrible poem.
That's a bad poem. It is.

Strange nature of a strange thing called love

2010-07-28T01:33:00.001-07:00

Can't say that I understand you--in fact not at all
When I was fifteen, they asked me once
I fumbled for an answer with empty innocence
and came up with a blank paper
I could fold paper hearts then
I've forgotten how
old bus tickets became fragile hearts
If the numbers were lucky I knew I would be loved
You were that simple
You were origami decked onto numerology
if I could get the folds right and the digits
But now
here I am
there you are
I say your name easily enough
a simple three syllable
but your meaning
I can't excavate
every night as I walk home in the lashing cold
I think that I can grow you
that you are the reward at the end of patience
that you are worth waiting for
and I walk in the dark. I walk.

Lee

2010-06-19T01:43:00.000-07:00

Sitting next to me in the theatre
snorting, arm over arm
you are a mess
I found
that you are not something to clean up
so slowly,
I learnt to embrace

Anonymous

2010-06-19T01:39:00.000-07:00

You, it's always you
when a car drives by
or I see an overcoat.
Lee calls you poison,
I call you
the fog, the night, the sea.

Linseed oil

2010-05-26T22:30:00.000-07:00

This world, is made up of things, things:
like that robot fish on you tube
silver knobs twisting
movement as real as anything at sea, and
fingers pressed against aquarium glass--
a little girl--
who'll grow up remembering a jeweled fish
swimming lopsided
because
things are real, no matter how much people tell her it was an illusion.
Sylvia Plath lied
when she said: you,
can't put toothbrushes in poems
Linseed oil, for example, has memory,
they will always remember their first contact with light
If
that is true, how different are we?

The toothbrush is real,
it is this poem
that is not

I was never a very good poet anyway

2010-05-19T00:14:00.001-07:00

Dusk, after work,
the tiger-striped sky
royal blue
gold like the eye of cats
and shredded clouds
made
the Golden Gate look ravaged
Always, at this hour
I feel
that I can forgive myself all my sins
I don't need no God. No.
This world, the yellow traffic light, the off-key singing of the kids on the bus,
they are all enough
I don't need love, torment, philosophy.
No paradise lost or inferno. No.
This,
is enough for me.

Love

2010-05-08T23:36:00.000-07:00

It steals in
so gently
fingers of light
through thin curtains
unwarily, already on your skin
you wonder--
when did it happen
how
did you miss it
how did it touch you through
that wall
how did it
light up that corner of your heart

it is like opening your eyes
already, it is morning.

Yosemite--a journal in sentences

2010-05-02T18:41:00.000-07:00

Houses peering over the hill, their hidden faces, eager like children.

That white in the distance above the peak--is that the clouds or snow?

The graveyard next to the vineyard--clean rows of tombs facing neat rows of trees.

A chorus of screams--there's a bear.

Rust-grey barks, black twisted trunks--signs of last summer's fire.

A still pool of water littered with brown leaves--what's that--a fish.

The night sky is a dew covered celestial web.

They saw shooting stars; I only spotted an aeroplane.

Campfire with strangers, full of awkward silences and firesmoke.

Bacon juices make the fire sizzle, sputter and fizz.

After the long climb, the cool creek is tempting, even with the undercurrent.

Late afternoon sun scorched patches of black soil gold.

Early morning--an owl hoots so sad in the dark.

At the peak, trees look so small, I feel like I can eat them.

The stream is a swirl of colors--rust, jade, coal and sparks of sunlight.

I found names of people I know carved out on trees, rocks and moss.

Tents are so thin, our dreams thread together in occasional sleeptalks overheard.

Morning, my jacket still smells of campfire smoke.

This city

2010-04-25T16:48:00.001-07:00

Taking the 6.40am down nineteenth
sped down the city
sun barely a rose
the world, an orange edge
houses facing the sun like first flowers
the air laced
with cold
my skin, prickled with the renewal of morning
squeezing this new life under my pores.
I kept the window open
feeling of morning as strong as at six
as I waited for sunrise cycling around and around the living room
past an ambulance's red and silver lights outside
an opened door
a darkened room
Perhaps someone died
I'll never know
speeding down nineteenth thinking of morning, and peace and life.
This city never gives
under that thin layer of morning fog
it is
oblivious
to the bums coming out of hiding from wild bushes.
The Golden Gate and the shrouded hills
looks on proudly, rising up over the gleaming bay
keeping its parts and people--
wrapped up in the silence and
this new light.
I wondered, about life, stories, and mystery
but this city never gives.

old things

2010-04-20T23:26:00.000-07:00

I am someone who can't let go of the past
old name tags I hang on to
Back home there's a suitcase of memorbilias
hand-made cards with my name misspelled
crinkled letters of highschool crushes
I hold on to every one of them
even those signed by names no longer with faces
And then
there's you
sometimes,
I'll find you
nose a little alternated
smile a little crooked
the way you are folded up like old letters
always along the same folds
familiar like origami crane
I tuck you away in a suitcase in my mind
opening to peek when the mood strikes
the moon's too bright or the night too warm
then I look at you
your changing face
and I know this sad truth about myself
I am someone who can't let go of the past.

On being tamed

2010-04-20T01:00:00.000-07:00

I know what Carlos means when he says--
"Next time we'll come back, without the girl."
He thinks
that I have tamed you
what he doesn't know is that
I have opened up the shells around my heart
for the gulls to peck on
and feel it trembling
so tender, easily bruised
that old anger
is gone
What you don't know
and I never told you
whether it's for your life or your camera lens
when Carlos pointed at that overhang where the grass grew
your legs trembled
and I
felt such indescribable joy.

One night

2010-04-20T00:58:00.000-07:00

Do you know? There was once I prayed for you
walking that maze outside Grace cathedral
that you may
find love
I hope you did
and are happy

Mapping the terrains of the heart

2010-04-16T23:53:00.000-07:00

Mapping the terrains of the heart
is a difficult thing.
Like untamed wild
you conquer it inch by inch
a foot at a time
a step, then another
with nothing
but a flashlight in hand,
its thin beam
quivering in the dark
to the calls of Coyote
as the grounds beneath you--shift--
like shadows,
you stumble,
praying--Oh God--
please
don't let that battery die

Maybe.

2010-04-11T22:49:00.000-07:00

Spotting cabs
eucalyptus peeling red
grey clouds
blue mountains
black mush roadside tree
you say "it's eucalyptus"
"a cab" I say
whistling trails
"would you like to live here"
I tell you Hong Kong typhoons trembling metal shacks
sunlight pulling in
your camera bag jagged on my knee
can we do this again? You smile maybe.

Baker's beach

2010-04-06T19:14:00.000-07:00

Old men. Scattered on the black sand
like
beached whales (that's it)
old prunes, BBQ pork
red, greasy.
white foam
tossed by the sea
the wind, beyond the damp line
Me.
pretending to read
that man! with the thong up the crack of his ass
that young guy with the nice body
oh man.
Men.
scattered on the beach

Stutterer

2009-08-15T23:37:00.000-07:00

but. She said. I am not. but.

Still Life

2009-08-06T22:59:00.000-07:00

Still
still
still
still thinking
of a smile,
a smell
a backview.

Never

2009-07-12T23:23:00.000-07:00

Never
believed
in monsters under my bed
or Santa Clause
coming down the chimney
or mermaids or fairies
or easter bunnies
boogey man was a joke
so were threats of menacing police kidnapping naughty kids
there was nothing
that ever scared me
except
ghosts
that still linger in the corridors
everytime the elevator door closes
holding chains, strings, bound with hair
whispering
never, never, never

Bed Mates

2009-06-18T14:22:00.000-07:00

little bleeder buggers
(come out come out to play)
your jelly white eggs
your speely spiny short legs
your greedy sucker teeth

when I sleep
dreaming of white sand and faraway land
you will join me
crawling up so slowly
softly, smoothly
skin breathing with slumber
will feel your pincher
as we wake feeling like we've had a good stinger
swelling up a little red hill
oh yes, I think I will enjoy the kill

watching the white fog descend
your short happy life coming to an unexpected end
good bye little bleeders
farewell, farewell.
Tonight, I will sleep well.
Finally. Hooray

Ordinary Miracles

2009-06-14T23:56:00.000-07:00

It is an email (timely)
a sun rise (unexpected)
the call of the ocean, seagulls and whistling seaweeds riding salt breeze
it is a meeting (expected and unexpected)
a visit (somewhere new)
the glass on an elevator at noonday, the city falling away at your feet
the tired flaps of tires on wet gravel
the last rains on your hair as you enter the apartment building
it is every prayer unsaid, unknown, whispered in the secret corners of the soul
as the curtains billow
in the last pitch black hours of a day when nothing stirs
but dreams walk abroad
seeking solace in solitude of
a bum's clumped up sleeping bag (ambsuhed around every street corner)
eyes wide as a toad's.

Sprinkles

2009-06-13T18:27:00.000-07:00

This morning it rained.
I saw
fallen pine cones shattered
wet pavement
petals broken
from all these
a wet earth fragrance

I walked in the sprinkling
dotting my face
and thought
of a giant cooler of heaven
keeping the earth fresh