POETRY

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To be still...

Listening and waiting.

Keeping your mind silent.

You are stillness in motion.

Breathing in.

Breathing out.

Being conscious yet not aware.

You are stillness in motion.

The worlds continues.

Sounds evolve.

You hear but not listen.

You are stillness in motion. 

Be in peace.

Settle in your space.

Letting go.

You are stillness in motion. 

O breath of the high desert,
I feel you stirring at the edge of summer’s heat—
a whisper threading through piñon and juniper,
cool fingers brushing the mesas awake.

The Sandias blush earlier now,
as if shy with the thought of change,
their granite bones catching fire
in the last long stretches of evening light.

Hot-air balloons rise like prayers at dawn,
a thousand colors stitched against the turquoise sky,
their silence broken only by flame and cheer—
an autumn sky quilted in wonder.

Chiles roast on every corner,
green fire and smoke curling into the air,
the scent a spell of hunger and home,
a promise of hearth and table.

Cottonwoods prepare their golden hymn,
lining the Rio Grande with light
that ripples and bends
like sun caught in prayer.

You arrive not with thunder
but with hush—
a thinning of air,
a longer shadow on the dirt road,
a silence that waits to be filled
by migrating wings overhead.

O Autumn,
in New Mexico you are not a season,
but a blessing—
a reminder carved into earth and sky
that even endings burn with beauty.

I lay the past to rest beneath a quiet sky,
a version of me who once clung too tightly
to fear, to doubt, to what-ifs.
There is no anger here — only gratitude,
for every scar that taught me how to mend.

I speak softly to the shadow I was:
thank you for surviving.
Thank you for holding me upright
when the wind would have swallowed me whole.
But I cannot stay with you.
Your lessons have ripened,
and I must harvest what remains.

Now, with slow and steady hands,
I build again.
Each breath a brick,
each step a seed.
I trade shame for patience,
and wear kindness as my armor.

This new self rises not from forgetting,
but from remembering with gentleness.
I do not erase the path behind me —
I walk forward because of it.
And in this growing light,
I learn what it means
to be whole.

October arrives like a whisper through the orchard; soft, deliberate, cloaked in the scent of ripened things. The air hums low with endings and beginnings, as if the earth itself exhales after a long season of growing. Trees undress slowly, scattering memories like gold coins at our feet, and somewhere between dusk and dream, the veil thins. The world trembles in that tender space where shadows remember their bodies.

The moon swells; round, generous, and ancient. It spills its silver harvest across fields and rooftops, illuminating the quiet faces of pumpkins, apples, and those who still believe in the turning of unseen hands. Under its glow, the night feels both sacred and near. We speak softer, walk slower, as if afraid to disturb the spirits gathering in the wind.

Autumn teaches us that beauty lingers in decay, that light bends sweetest when it is about to fade. October, with her cool breath and candlelit heart, reminds us to gather what remains; to harvest warmth, memory, and hope before the frost takes hold.

In the attic’s hush, they wait in rows,
Eyes of glass where dust now grows.
Fraying lace and ribboned hair,
Whisper secrets to the air.

Once held close in hands of care,
Now forgotten, unaware—
Of laughter’s echo, fading slow,
Through years where silent shadows go.

Porcelain lips, forever sealed,
Guard the dreams the past concealed.
Buttons weep beneath the grime,
For dolls long lost within their time.

A clock ticks soft, its face askew,
Marking hours that never grew.
A child’s voice hums—a fleeting chime—
Then fades… like dolls lost in time.

The chill arrives like a secret sin,
soft-fingered, pale, and thin—
it brushes lips where summer slept,
and wakes the dark within.

Each tree bends low in trembling grace,
dressed in decay’s perfume;
the air is stitched with sighs of dusk,
and whispers from the tomb.

My candle burns with lover’s ache,
its flame a bleeding crown;
the walls lean close to hear it weep,
as silence settles down.

Beneath the moon’s cathedral light,
I feel Fall's kiss—
cold as faith, and sweet as grief,
a touch that tastes of bliss.

It lingers where the heart once dreamed,
and leaves its mark like prayer—
the promise of a ghost returned,
and frost upon the air.

I chased the shimmer, not the sun,
counted trophies, not the days.
Each heartbeat marked another run,
through hollow halls and fleeting praise.

The mirror told me I had won,
but silence whispered, you’ve misplaced
the warmth of hands, the gentle one,
the quiet love you once embraced.

I traded stars for neon light,
the hush of dawn for restless noise.
In reaching far, I lost my sight,
of simple truths, of humble joys.

Now I pause, and breathe the air,
feel grass beneath, the earth’s soft hum.

What I had lost was always there
the heart returns when we grow numb.

So may I see with clearer eyes,
what doesn’t gleam, yet keeps me whole.

The tender things that never die
the unseen light that feeds the soul.

The marigolds still whisper through the night,
Their petals hum your name in embered glow,
I set your place beneath the altar light.

The air is sweet with smoke and candlelight,
Pan dulce waits where sugar skulls all show,
The marigolds still whisper through the night.

Your photograph burns softly, edges bright,
As if you breathe where autumn breezes blow—
I set your place beneath the altar light.

We dance in dreams between the dark and white,
Where souls return to mend what hearts still know,
The marigolds still whisper through the night.

Though death divides, love grants a brief invite,
To cross once more where living memories flow,
I set your place beneath the altar light.

So when I pray, I feel your spirit’s flight,
Through candle smoke that flickers, soft and low—
The marigolds still whisper through the night,
I set your place beneath the altar light.

The nights grow longer, heavy with breath unseen,
And frost creeps silent through the weeping trees.
The dying light withdraws behind the screen
Of ashen clouds that whisper elegies.

The days shrink small, a candle guttering low,
Its final flame a trembling, fleeting sigh.
Each dawn arrives already draped in woe,
Too frail to warm the earth or light the sky.

I walk among the bones of summer’s bloom,
Their ghostly petals pressed in frozen loam.
Each step resounds within the hollow gloom,
And every echo whispers, you are home.

The wind laments through chimneys cracked with age,
And stirs the dust of years that came before.
I hear the past turn softly, page by page,
And feel the dark draw nearer to my door.

Oh, let it come, this winter of the soul,
This slow surrender to the sleep of stone.
For what is warmth but light the grave shall stole,
And what is life but learning to be alone?

Yesterday shimmered like silver on water,
a perfect moment held breathless in time.
I wore joy like a borrowed gown,
soft, shining, weightless on my skin.

The world felt lit from within,
as if every shadow had forgotten its name.

But today the air tastes different.
The light has thinned.

The mirror shows a face that looks almost mine,
yet washed of yesterday’s glow,
as if someone wiped the color clean
and left only the outline behind.

The halls whisper with strange memory.
The floors groan beneath my steps
as though mourning what cannot return.
Every room feels slightly haunted
by the echo of a happiness too bright
to belong in a house like this.

I keep touching my own pulse
to be sure the magic did not vanish with the night.
I keep searching my hands
for the warmth that folded into them,
searching my throat for the laughter,
searching my heart for the spark.

The day after the best day of your life
is a cold and beautiful thing,
a reminder that joy is a ghost
who visits only for a moment
and leaves behind the faint scent of roses
wilting in the dark.

Now what, I ask the silent rooms.
Now what, I ask the windowpane
that reflects a quieter version of me.

No answer comes.

Only the soft hum of the world continuing
long after the wonder has passed,
and the distant promise
that somewhere ahead
another miracle waits
in the shadows.

The clock bleeds silence through the hollow air,
Its hands like shadows clawing at despair.
Each tick a whisper of what cannot remain,
A fleeting joy entwined with hidden pain.

The glass grows dim with breath that once was bright.

A candle falters, yielding to the night.
Time does not heal, it carves and leaves its mark,
An endless script etched deep within the dark.
Yet in its ruin, love may still abide —
A fragile flame the years cannot divide.

December brings a hush the world remembers
a silver breath that drifts across the darkened air
and settles on rooftops like a quiet promise.

It brings the soft glow of windows waking early
golden light trembling against the long night
as if each home guards a little warmth to share.

It brings the scent of pine and frost
the slow rhythm of boots on waiting sidewalks
the echo of seasons folded into memory.

It brings the return of old thoughts
forgotten letters tucked in drawers
and names that rise again with the cold.

It brings the tender ache of endings
the gentle hope of beginnings
woven together like threads in a winter scarf.

And though the year bows low
December brings its fragile lantern
lifting the dark just enough
for us to see where we have been
and where we might go next.