Before You Go

Did you know that you deserve many hugs,
that you induce hugs of great friendship?
You are, perhaps a hug capacitor.
Deep down, we are all hug capacitors.
Some hug often, others seldom --
it just depends on what kind of capacitor you are.
What is a hug, you ask?
It is a sign, a spark of friendship,
welling up within, beyond the grasp of words,
a feeling of belonging that lingers
long after and more deeply than the warmth of arms
wrapped around our shoulders for a moment.

The Students' Battle Cry During Finals

Arise!
They scale the walls!
Do not drop the feathered pen
until those free and happy creatures
snatch it from our cold and curled fingers
with their ferocious jaws!

My Design

I escape
when I build a prison of worries,
sad-ending stories, and lies.
I flee
to a nice countryside house
I've constructed myself and designed.
But soon
all that I have ever known
conspires -- the windows are barred.
I know
that perhaps someone else's house
should have been the home I found.

Home for Thanksgiving

It has been a good day. I drove to Connecticut with an friend, dropped him at his home before continuing on to mine, and upon approaching the neighborhood I felt the familiarity with which a sailor recognizes the outline of his native shore after months at sea. My dad pushed me up the ramp into the house and I suddenly felt the difference between standing steadily on the wooden planks of a floating vessel and wandering through a home fastened to the earth. It was not so much the space as it was the feeling that the last time I was there, I had been a different person. This gave me hope that perhaps all of that trying to "stay put" while being tossed on the sea had actually brought me somewhere new after all.

"To Gilman Island"

Bright stars need not keep watch for us beneath
The glowing swirling clouds of grayish blues,
Where mountain pine and hemlock ridges sink
Into a rivershore beside the heath,
Where wooded paths descend over the rues
And hobbling rocks to end by water's brink.

In darkness beyond the spring peepers screech.
Our craft tiptoes across the liquid sky,
Oars dipping in -- ripples -- then dripping.
We taste the moonglow blood of earth that rests,
Breathing night-lovers light into our breaths,
Rising and falling the still air caressing,
Awaiting the thud of sand, till we fly --
Feet leaving pillowmarks upon the beach.