01 Monday Sep 2025
Autumn grips with fast approach,
a fear, a sadness, an ineffective hesitation
in the cooling molasses wrapping us up.
Another anniversary rides toward its destination.
No keeping that horse at bay,
no desire to,
but apprehension sinks–
abide and wait, abide and wait..
with a little time,
it will turn itself inside out and
become a celebration…
21 Friday Apr 2023
With one slow turn of the head
eyes sift softly through glass and
who should appear but the swallows;
The swallows are back,
zipping and gliding and making mirth–
they are the mirth-makers–
and my heart goes lightly, up and out
with them.
They emerge from a crack in the world,
from beyond there to right here.
How lovely to be with them again.
Together, as sun says goodbye this evening,
we will cut the sky.
We will cut silent sky,
and pull down a net of stars
to sprinkle dreaming
across a blooming desert night.
17 Friday Mar 2023
The horrible truth, felt,
finally spoken,
worse than death. Many times worse.
Sky fills with vultures, high,
dozens spiraling dozens, circles and circling.
Perhaps nothing so beautiful,
nothing before.
Large, black, some golden with angling sun,
every one of them alive with death,
their carrion feast,
every one of them, all, in flight,
wings extended and eyes bright, alive
in partnership
with Death.
Alive and flying, together, loosely
through sky,
floating and effortless,
in partnership
with Death and Wind.
Effortless.
Flying, floating, free.
And effortless.
22 Tuesday May 2018
It’s the twist of a good story
to say it begins where it begins.
Because who is to say what happened first?
The lines we lead, roads we walk, families we form,
always
always something came before..
and during.
Land of birth, food of soil, light of sun,
books read, laughter lived, sex, music,
slumber.
Infinite details of the turning of the world,
and equally many perspectives,
makes knowing
a sweet impossibility.
09 Tuesday Jan 2018
Gnarls and knots-
twistings of difficulty and experience
train the tree toward ancient mastery.
R i n g s
spread in stilled ripples-
water’s character in wood.
Toes wrap in dark, salted earth below,
fingers stretch through blue air above.
In storm, drought and calm
echo countless ancestral voices
from forests long ago gone.
30 Sunday Oct 2016
What if we were as fierce
about seeing
finding
knowing beauty
as ugliness, fear, and lack?
Would we not become greater protectors
of the overlooked and precious?
Would our focus not
change
from what we want to avoid
to that asking
for further creation?
From being barefoot on rain-soaked earth
while sun breaks clouds overhead,
to cinnamon in coffee,
the perfect heat of a shower,
sustained note of a well-played cello,
to strangers reaching for each other’s hands,
and friends who have plenty to eat,
a car that starts,
the woodpecker we’d like to curse
for waking us out of sleep-only-
its tapping brought us a view of the sunrise,
and places in existence where peoples
are honored and heard.
Wouldn’t the goodness flood us
even if
nothing else could we sense but
the beating of our own heart-
wouldn’t miracles fill our days?
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.
14 Wednesday Sep 2016
An act of love is a stone
dropped
into a body of water:
It ripples.
The world may be unresolvable
but
you can still make waves.
Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone 