" Redbud Trailhead " after the divorce... journeys start with suppositions, and occur only when dispelling them rain heralds my departure (an ancient mouth opening) snow is conceived a slow, brilliant tornado renames the mountain remakes everything at 8,000 feet, pines sway on waves of white, silent language flurries of silence, dropping old words and the trees draw themselves into glittering, dream shapes a bristlecone wedding, white pianos icy notes replay themselves again and again, and I'm a spectator, not in the band a sparkling symphony of aspens etched into the brittle score and I can't remember why I came here... to find something new? .... .... lose something old? .... an answer of birds, like a white orchid grows sacred, cloudy music Soon, the trailhead vanishes the hush of an immaculate tabernacle a pure womb broken open Surely, people aren't allowed here... words aren't even allowed here just like the marriage a fish under ice. I chip at it, slow gills the universe birthing itself in soundless, white combat except a dark crow, rising like a lost note against the grand scale of rock a clef wind, shaking the rotted city from it's branches and my reasons for being there vanish into simply being a citadel of frozen stars ice blue planets strung with the snow in grace, and rock folded softly under a pure prayer left open for me. © 2003 seaandbell (Debi Carwell)

* This Week's Honorable Mentions: "The Futility of Triple Words " by Frank Faust "Interconnections " by Steve Williams "Lot's Wife " by Lisa Janice Cohen "Breaking the Skin " by Graeme Mullen "Hubble Reflections " by Marty Abuloc "Maria in the Swimming Pool " by Marie Eyre "Departures " by Dorothy Doyle Mienko

* Honorable Mentions are in no particular order.