Not Just Yet and Other Poems

By Tom Squitieri

Not Just Yet

At morning the snow eludes
The joy of rebirth
the wakeup of beauty promised
instead the cold darts
Of water pellets
Hit the deck
Warfare on our anticipation
Beauty chased away
Cocoon endangered

Cold rain does not
Hug tree branches with beauty
Permit fast dashes for snow angels
Nor trigger mirth for wanting, sloping
Hillsides so
Eager to bask in Brigadoon
Laughter of children

Yet a solitary bird
Sings loud and determined
Leading the way
To chase the cold
usher in blessing
Its music is
Beauty to us
it scolds the sky
insists it correct itself
Soon it will 

Last Day, New Hope

You choose the color
And it blossoms from the same
Shade that part of you proclaims

You choose nature
Because it embraces your
Lushness as if Earth’s bounty

Do not fade from us
In photo or beauty
Spread and hold nature
As natural as the flora
The surround you and smiles
That loves you as truly as
A select few
Urging you to come fully
To the caress of trueness
The pink of eagerness
The eagerness of oneness

Just a Few Butterflies

It is still the right dusk, the soft sounds of reality
The harsh human sounds are tired and faint, and far away
Wisely, I sit and wait.

No fireflies arrive. It is still their stage, though,
And I need to see them again
Right now
It is how dusk tells you the real time

If I see the butterflies during the day, I smile
The plantings make them feel welcome and they come
With their freedom and wisdom
Makes me laugh as I think
For no logical reason,
the cliche of
“What would you tell your younger self?”
And you realize you cannot
Just as dawn is a silent cousin to dusk
So too is the wisdom we acquire
Through our days fleeting for the next moments
leaving our memory for good

Only a morning rain can visibly nourish through the day
While the sun, the arbitrator of dusk and dawn,
silently teaches to our blindness.

The Good Rain does come
and we flow fully into each other
with each other.
the wind moves your covering, 
my eyes unfasten the rest,
you open your eyes 
to what you have longed for, and now it is here. 
The derecho of me, all just for you.

I have stopped, 
to look fully at you and smile.
like hot tasty coffee consumed,
your warmth expanding throughout me

the morning says it will remain dark longer,
to permit my words and photos to shine for you,
just you, in primacy

Stretch the legs to the sun, 
ideally on the sand
There is no better place

Just a few butterflies,
in this summer of tomorrow
Before the fall of harkening
The cold to come 
No fireflies now
Once again, too late
Only the sparks of that knowledge 
that cannot be passed back in time
And could our younger self’s ears
Even hear what we say
Or would the pitch be in an
Unknown language or frequency?

The evening sky mirrored 
the hope of morning,
tasked by the ferocity 
of the pride of a setting sun,
softened by the love of the message
it was offering

Tonight, I saw that message
it was a blue in the sky I had never seen before
heralded by the other colors framed, soft in their hands
Extending to me
The last roundup
It is time to walk to that cloud

February 30

A whisper away
You are
Here for a bit
Then silent
For me
Leaving an 
Alphabet of thoughts
Retreats
Boldness
Confusions

I whisper again 
Through My Mind
To yours
And it does
Connect
Sometimes

I whisper with words
In the quiet
As I try to see
In a world
Where full
darkness is still
Fair
Yet fullness of heart
Ready

How the years
Come back
To laugh and remind
Taunt
To hear in return
Truth
And charity
So the whisper words
Can be sanctuary smiles

Stillness holds hands
With the whisper
For that is what the elusive 
Day can only offer.

I saw her once again
So I know she is real

Still, eyes remain gauze
I cannot find you clearly
And wonder if I ever will
For my Canon in R.