03 Monday Apr 2017
Darkness, silence, brightness of stars,
silhouetted tree crowns,
the beauty of five a.m.
I’m not sure why we forget,
so readily forget,
the preciousness we participate in.
These troubles,
the wasting, threatening, destroying-
maybe turning ourselves right-side-round toward
birthing light
relies upon one task:
Remembering.
08 Wednesday Mar 2017
Grass,
green, high, lilting..
Spring wears her tall rubber boots
and wanders through
from seedling to start, from birdsong to unfurling fiddlehead.
Crossing slopes slowly,
around and up,
She eventually meets their tops
having tapped every waking wildflower
with a wink and a sweet how-do-you-do.
Her hair trails behind her in post-storm breeze.
With a softened gaze, you’ll catch a snippet of calico print dress
somehow waving
from a corner of your own sunny imagination.
11 Saturday Feb 2017
I think I’ll choose a valentine this year.
Maybe,
my valentine will be
the perfection of bells ringing
from the strand strung across the handlebars
of that bike slowly riding through town.
Or the wet bark of vanilla-butterscotch scented pine,
the one dropping sap spring into fall
for the bottoms of my feet to collect.
Or the lovely world view offered up by that children’s librarian.
Or the reflection of the silent patron
who sips coffee and dives into book and notebook-
shadow and light of paper, letters, pencil.
Or the hands of that man,
rough in all the right ways.
Probably, though, it’ll be the spark in your eyes
when the magic of this finite existence
brings a smile from rivers so deep
you never stood a chance to resist.
Hmm,
It might be worth checking your mailbox real soon…
02 Thursday Feb 2017
Somebody’s got their hands in the cookie jar
to take every last one.
And ain’t nobody having it.
Because it goes like this~
One for you, and for you, and for you and you and you.
Anybody missed?
Oh yes, please join us,
your stories are encouraged.
Here, warm your toes
by this joyous, abundant fire.
21 Saturday Jan 2017
The women speak
and dogs lay down side by side,
cats walking railings sit in spots full of sun,
the cursed dust no longer cursed
becomes, finally, nutrient moving
from here to there.
(Trees nod slowly in recognition.)
The women speak
and silence begins again to be known-
an expansion from where
the most needed, sassy ideas rise.
The women speak,
and our planet shakes off a yoke
we think we’ve set around Her neck.
The women speak,
hummm, yes, listen.
17 Saturday Dec 2016
It wasn’t through torn paper
blackened shoelace
or scuffed wall
that I found You.
It wasn’t the constant push
circulating fear
or I-must-do-betters..
not even the inch between
the sidewalk and me
plus a bruised knee.
Not exactly.
Add the non-starts,
regimented dreams,
what’s-wrong-with-me’s,
attempts to fit when fitting fed starvation,
and the broken heart- birthday after birthday-
with one shattering
nearly beyond recovery
that, finally,
I found You.
The joke being
that I’ve carried You in me
since before the first sunrise.
Except now,
when I say hello
I can hear You answer.
22 Thursday Sep 2016
Being an untamed tributary
of a river whose origin reaches far
into depths unkown
brings twists of bramble,
leaping fish,
frog and cricket symphonies,
bats dipping low in twilight-
when settling into quiet lulls.
In rugged young churning-
escaping water
pulls earth, boulder, tree to itself
as passion builds with heavy rains,
filling banks,
carving hungry routes,
chewing civilized lands and
renewing plots left withering.
This tributary is this and more,
trading nothing away
in honor of its nature–
wild, strong and unpossessing.
28 Sunday Aug 2016
Being sculpted
means
being thrown,
as clay,
first kneaded- no bubbles – then
spun
well beyond dizzy,
cut,
and fired to degrees
scorching
even by shuddering imagination
if
your aim is to be a
cup,
vase,
bowl,
holy space ripe
for filling,
able to offer solace, pleasure,
delight,
beauty, compassion,
ease,
and round reflections of sky.
Don’t hold on.
Be here.
13 Saturday Aug 2016
And if the stars are talking to you
through closed sash and latched window?
And if the tree sway would catch you in a dance
were you only to step outside at dawn?
And if the thick green pond might turn blue
if you’d catch its eye while passing by?
And if the coyote call one ridge away
could reach your naked aching ear
were technology not wedged tight,
filling the cracks where nature could get in?
And if the ducks recently born,
hiding beneath the bowering bracken
edging the water
could gather your attention as you do theirs,
would this love affair ripen
and our wild and sacred
no longer be made into amusement parks?
There is a begging for fidelity here-
make this wild love affair true.
It is our one way through.
13 Saturday Aug 2016
Sometimes
one who entwined fingers with you through the night
departs as
quickly
as he arrived,
and kisses left on on the back of your hand
mark his passing.
Sometimes
that is
plenty.
Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone 