The Poems
Soft
By Tim Berube
Who are These beings Who sprang From New tilled Earth
What air Has filled Newborn lungs But Soft spring breezes Which speak only Of Joy and Rebirth
What but golden Light Has fallen On tender Pink Flesh
What sights Have Still sticky Eyes Beheld But this Sun Capped Garden
What sounds Have Serenaded Tiny ears But resounding Persistent Cries of love
Were they even Born With Egg teeth To break through The thin Layer of misery They will find Just below The thin layer Of paradise Of the spring Time Glade Of Their birth
The Night
By Tim Berube
Wind rises, Darkness drifts, descends, Gathers – a cloak, torn, frayed, flapping. Light flows Bends, runs in rivers of colors Purples, blues, yellows Fleeing This coming nighttime Tide.
And through it all Night, in all its cold, ghostly radiance, falls Comes smothering. Screams – born In terror rising – freeze in Throats constricted by the settling, Silent dark.
And all about, Through all of this, Where each noise, each breath, each Beat of the heart, every drifting shadow, Every rustle of every branch Every shifting, every creak of every board – In this all to empty which surrounds us – Takes on a terrifying brilliance.
We stand in awe Before a window opened Frigid air on Tender flesh
In wonder we see The world reborn Reaching out To us Not For us
Winter Dreams
By Tim Berube
The wind picks gently Through snow covered boughs I pause To rest Beside an ice Sheltered stream Watching steam Rise Oh so gently From the water Below
My breathing – a being unto itself Existing for the moment Glorying in this pristine place Dancing upon the now
Caught
My attention wanders Jewels in the snow
Thick fluff stirs, swirls, settles Descends about me – upon me Cascading in a cold revelry Shouts of joyous agony Pierce the echoing silence Breaking my momentary Melancholy
For a moment All is spring In it’s full glory A cacophony of sound and play Then The comforter falls yet again Mother tucking us in Lights off children Till true spring soon returns
Hunger
By Tim Berube
Where were you You Who laid here Within my arms
She glistened In soft Swollen Red Early light A denizen of Misty Far off Shadowy realms Fragments Of which Still remained
Hints Of ancient Towering Trunks Soft Spongy earth Underfoot Ancestral scents In the memory of Pungent Humid air Suggestions Of the stalking jaguar In the deep Shaded Mist shrouded jungle Sounds Of a place A time Known Deep within us Yet Ever eluding us
All Lingering Fading As sleep Loses it’s grip And dreams Recede Before The light Of rising reason
I dreampt of you He says
She smiles At his soft Steady gaze His tender Trailing touch His sprawled Sleep ridden form
It is the rising sun Which wakes you She replies
No He says It is hunger Which wakes me
Into his arms She is engulfed And Gentle teeth And lips And tongue Make quick work Of Now Forgotten Hungers
Dawn
By Tim Berube
“Hark, sister, can you hear it?”
Grey Stale City Light Disappears Before a rising Red-black newborn sun
Stiff metal walls Fences really Rattle Dance In the gathering wind Of a night Become Day
“Shh” He coos To the sobbing one
The sound of Terrified Knocking Knees Is lost In the rising wale Before An impending storm Of day Become night
“It is the singing of angels” He exclaims Sheer Rapture Filling His voice
In his arms He Can no longer feel The shivers Of the one Cradled Therein Drowned out By The Pounding Screaming Roaring Earth As though a million Mad trains Beat upon it Racing To far horizons
He turns To face The newborn sun It’s glorious Radiance Reflected Where once Loving Eyes Dwelt
“Shh” He calls Through lips turned Ash Stroking A memory of her A memory of Hands And Of hair
“It will be all right” Whispers The memory Of a voice On the wind
