Upon My Death

 Can you not grant me just this wish?

To wring the fruit 'til no drop is left

and let us be and breathe and grieve

this heart grown weary of breath after breath--

can you not give one dream to me?

To be remembered and loved upon my death.

I am every leaf

each blade of grass

wings seeking

seed sprouting

rain tempos

birds quieting

from this stillness

arose every music.

4 Poems

"Drown"

We are taking on too much water, so
I am plunging the ore between the planks of the boat
and prying them apart.

I am sinking this ship into the sea.
I wouldn't call the choice very easy
but it is plain to me
the hull is rotting.

I was hoping to get a decade in
before the weather took her down
but then, the splitting crack of frame,
the sail lost near rocky shore--
she ran aground,

Abandon ship, abandon--
our heart, our lives, we drown.



"Untitled"

Look at this, the thread unraveling,
your prophecy, self-fulfilling.
Look at us, our rock, eroding.



"Might"

This inner violence becomes me.

Don't forget that I am ten feet tall
and forged in fire, an iron knight.

Do not forget I wield a blade half my size
and twice my might.

Do not mistake the love I gave--
It was truer than the truest soul--
Fiercer than the greatest wind--
Deeper than Poseidon's throne--

Don't mistake my need for you
as the air I need to breathe.
You've driven me away enough,
and now, I set you free.



"Ten Feet Tall"

Good. I hope you always feel ten feet tall
and never this small.

I hope you know your heart is worth a hundred hearts
and a hundred loves to be.

I've found it doesn't help to hurt in love,
it truly helps to see

when another's heart is too small to give
ten feet of love to me.

Mountain

It's not the feeling

but the image it evokes

mountains of dormant, unencumbered fog

stretching into the white rooftop of the world

solitude, a foundation

to grow the tallest

sprawl into the space allowed, unrequesting--

those attracted to the independence of another

are not looking for softness or knowable darkness, but seeking

a mountain.

All Forests / Flotsam

"All Forests"

Hello.
I don't know you.
I don't know people.
What tribes, what living quarters?
I want to live there --
How am I supposed to find such a connecting force?
Let awe inspire us.
Let awe fulfill us
that we might see the great trees of all forests.

* * *

"Flotsam"

how far drifted have I?
I am flotsam
and you seemed like an anchor
of some kind--

there is this legend, this mythology
that I am mad, desperate or crazy
but really, I've been impaled so many times
the spear has become me--

I don't mean to offend or deceive--
I don't trust you,
but I have you inside me.

Cottage

That little cottage sitting on a hill,
overlooking what once was a silver place,
where moonlight guided all of the spirits to their destinations.


That little cottage
which stands lonely now,
abandoned by the Wind.
Only silence has come to claim it,
as a fading breath
slips from the windows
and through the cracks in the floor,
lying mute and pervasive in that dark place,
in the shadows behind chairs,
in the cracked foundations of the heart.


The closet door stands open,
the only words left in this house, telling me
You once shut this door on yourself 
and lived here, in all the hidden corners of a child's closet– 
I was the doll.
This the paper castle in which I lived my Night.


~TL Shreffler

Grow

I want to grow graciously outward,
To leave behind the Riverbend,
To drop what I can do without,
Come quietly to myself again.

I want to riddle up and secret down,
Do more than simply long to go,
I want to find that tune in me
To strengthen strings and follow flow.

I want to find a sacred song,
An answered prayer, a name and verse--
By seeking you, I seek myself,
And so, your love I follow first.