Sometimes

We sat on the beach at World's End
Sailing in a bottomless boat
Traveling to islands of conversation

Soaking up spring warmth
While the sun flashed
Brilliant blinding water-diamonds
Cast about by swirling winds

You looked so small
Putting my arm around
Seemed right
Felt safe and good
We shared simple pleasures
And talked of past and future

Time passed without notice
The hour caught us late
We left the boat beached
For others to sail
On trips of their own

And now I find
You're afraid of drowning
Of falling from the boat
I understand
That's true

Men do drown in seas so rough
Their preservers lost
The compass gone
But there are those that sail through

They take their dreams of other places
And fill their sails with hope
And push off from that rocky shore
Sometimes in a bottomless boat.

© Dana C. Lipp
April 26, 1997
~~~~~~~

Two AM

A steamy sweat peels me
from the bed
pries me from my sleep,
from my dreamy escape
like wallpaper curling off the walls
finding its natural bend
when the glue loses its grip

This time is other-worldly
is child-scary
my adult-eyes cannot see
the house creaks
like a huge beast gently breathing
with me inside

I am sometimes a gifted puzzler
seeing patterns in the pieces
of work and life
yet
some of my puzzle-pieces have been pressed together
ones that just don't fit
their curves and patterns mixed
by another's forceful hand and
single-minded-ego-purpose

Now, it seems there's only space between the pieces

I rub my neck and shoulders
the muscles twisted tight
into knotted rubber bands
somehow waiting for their release
like those balsa gliders
that once flew from my youthful hands

Into the sky they'd soar with glee
up and around
flying huge
crazy unpredictable arcs
looping and curving high into the air
the red plastic prop buzzing
until finally

gently

coming to rest
in the dewy evening grass

I return to my empty bed
its interior now cold
hoping for sleep
huddling my shoulders
pulling protection and comfort
from the covers and pillows
hoping for peace
and that the puzzle pieces
will knit themselves back together

© Dana Lipp
March 24, 1997
~~~~~~~

No Title

There's a sound that is like no other
That comes from deep within
It's found in a room full of people
And has no other close kin

I'ts like a wave that is breaking
On an island in a wide open sea
And it somehow closes the distance
That exists between you and me

It's built from the words in a poem
Yet the words cannot fully describe
The profound sense of communion
When we're all focused so deep inside

It's not the message I'm sending
Or what you may think I mean
It's not the words that really matter
But the spaces
That lie
In between

April 25, 1998
© Dana C. Lipp
~~~~~~~

Ice Cream

There's a place down the street that calls to me. It's something I can't quite explain, but can feel so clearly. It's got a certain feeling, one that takes my feet from their usual path of autopilot sidewalk wandering and causes me to turn inside. I end up sitting in a window seat, just taking it all in before I really notice that I'm not on the sidewalk any more. It's like being caught in the present and not knowing how I got there, but not really caring, either.

Maybe it's the vanilla smell from the freshly baked waffle cones that draws me in, or the brightly colored neon announcing the stuff for my taste buds that wait inside. But, its more than ice cream; it's sunny summer days past, days from my childhood that I taste, dog-days when the cicadas chirped so loudly from unseen places, making a racket in unison, announcing the temperature for all to hear. Its hot fudge sundaes, not one, but two consumed with laughter and without a care. I remember Sunday afternoons at Bailey's Ice Cream Shop, the kind of old style ice cream parlor with round gray marble tables and chairs with heart shapes on the back. It was innocence that we were eating, without a thought for the future or anything else for that matter, but we just lived for the ice cream and the present.

There were other hot summer days when we made strawberry ice cream in the backyard, cranking that ice and salt-filled White Mountain Freezer by hand for what seemed an eternity, 'til our arms ached, but the wait and the work made the taste so much sweeter. I can still see the flecks of red in the creamy, almost elastic frozen spoon-filled glacier before the texture hit my tongue, where it slowly yielded its cold to the warmth of my mouth, bursting with strawberry. "It was worth the wait," we'd say, as our spoons dove in again taking their cargo back to our hungry chirping, baby bird-mouths until it was all gone.

Yes, ice cream was all that really mattered then.

January 22, 1998
© Dana C. Lipp
~~~~~~~

Today

Today I found a God
Who speaks to me through the ways of Nature
In flowers
That grow through the cracks
In the pavement

Life that springs boundless,
Eternal
Prolific, almost shameless
In productive capacity and abandon
A bouillabaisse explosion of life
On the shores of harbors too polluted,
At the mouths of undersea vents
Too scalding hot, too hostile, they say

He speaks through the sage
Of the ancient invincible-weak redwoods
For without their strength collective
Their shallow roots
Are no match
For the winds and solo life

And so, gifts for us to see
Everywhere
Picture books left
To read and learn
Of ourselves and more than dreamable

Yet we often tear the pages out
And cast them aside
To mold
To make
To shape our own design
For our own selfish needs

As the offended patiently waits
Without judgement of what is,
Without memory of what was,
Or expectation of what will be

And simply grows
Through cracks in the pave.


© Dana C. Lipp
March 29, 1988
~~~~~~~

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