January 31, 2007 by Melanie Alberts.

I am thankful
for the 64 cents found
in the pocket, for my pen
lost ages ago, hair twined
around the barrel, color of ink

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January 18, 2007 by Melanie Alberts.

oak branch
blocks the icy path–
deep orange wound

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January 16, 2007 by Melanie Alberts.

Before we start, I tell my son to ask a question and when we’re done, an answer sometimes comes. He nods and rushes into the labyrinth. The paths are marked by low mounds of Berkeley sedge and statues of buddhas sit in the bare spaces. “Which way?” he asks as he courses through, boy-galloping even as he asks, his Converse sneakers the color of a hard drizzle. Laughing at the fat Buddha he sees, he makes it to the goal, a low-standing firepit still filled with charred wood. I meet him and we retrace our steps. “Let’s skip back,” I say and he does all the way, winding back to the mouth. I ask him how he feels. Smiling, he says “peace” (which is what he thinks I want him to say) and my answer comes: let him be.

shadows move
between long and short paths
a way is shown

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January 12, 2007 by Melanie Alberts.

holding you
in my palm, this crease
in a page–
folded over and over, a life
line or maybe one of the heart

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January 11, 2007 by Melanie Alberts.

I hope to walk a labyrinth each day for the next year (starting today). Here are three haiku I wrote after walking the one where I work….

traveling outward
to go inward–
January morning

at the center I find
my answer…three acorns,
yellow flowers, stones

rushing out,
winter wind on my face–
I am lighter

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