That Love

I was thirteen.

She was seventeen, maybe

eighteen.

               She lived with her grandparents

and all three attended my father's church.

and we were in the basement

in a Sunday school classroom

and then my hand to her breast

sliding into an unbuttoned blouse

as we kissed

                      and then our hands everywhere,

lips on each other as she guided me and I felt her breath

or God's or both on my neck

and that surge that would change 

everything and her smile as we pulled

our clothes back on

                                she going up one and I

the other stairs.

                       And everytime I feel that breathing

on my neck, I am haunted 

by that breath I felt, that human panting

and something else felt

in the basement of the sanctuary.

-Byron Hoot

Losing Faith in Disappointment

I have given up being disappointed

in disappointment

                           recognizing how egotistical

it is to think I can know beyond

the present moment or extract from

a selective remembered past

a future not yet here.

And I am not certain what I see

in disappointed is not self-reflection

cast out, onto someone, something

that has nothing to do with anything.

Of course, I may easily slip.

I was going to say it's only human

but there are stories from the divine

showing equally the belief in disappointment

end in regrettable consequences.

So I stop before I say,

"I'm disappointed" -- my humanity,

my divinity unable to know

what is just on the other side of now.

-Byron Hoot

Different Authority

In the preference of a different 
authority, the reconsideration    
of traveling has arisen.
Time and circumstance and
experience are saying what 
has not been heard, listened 
to before now.   
                          There is no argument 
to win or lose; things have gotten 
beyond that. 
                     Acquiescence for traveling 
overland or across inner highways 
is all that will be given. 

-Byron Hoot

Winter Beauty

The snow has come.

Some would say with

a fury,

           but it's winter beauty

in the only way it makes

sense -- the cold, the snow,

the wind, the fact of being

basically snowed in simply

the naked beauty

of winter.

                Eggs, bacon, 

potatoes, onions, toast,

hot coffee

                complete this

winter morning scene,

this winter grace,

this winter danger -

                                 not one

without the other.

-Byron Hoot

Photographs by Greg Clary

Photographs by Greg Clary

https://www.facebook.com/greg.clary.52

Seduction

"Deer?" I ask myself
thinking I heard footsteps
realizing it is the rain falling down

in late January to uncovered

leaves on the ground.
I love to be seduced
and a near seduction 

makes me smile,
lets me know
how willing
I am to
               surrender.   

-Byron Hoot

February

For a second

you forget

it’s the dead

leaves

rustling

overhead.

-Randi Ward

Albino

In your eyes

I can see

you don’t

expect me

to survive

in the wild.

-Randi Ward

Infusion

A day of paper

gowns and needles

singing doom

into the tender

masses.

-Randi Ward

Kite

I wish

it were

only

a question

of

getting

off

the ground.

-Randi Ward

Log

Isn’t it

strange

how 

a dusting

of snow

will

make you

your own

shadow?

-Randi Ward