14 Thursday Nov 2024
I see her, red hair aflame,
paint flying.
Swaths of blackest black,
gashes of scarlet–
blood, bone, ash, scorch,
ochre of marrow.
Enough words, make image.
Shock the system with truth,
Pandora’s box wide,
coffins nesting
and thrown open, skulls screaming out,
souls of generation upon generation of women:
This will not stand.
This will not stand.
No!
30 Monday Sep 2024
Ever make a choice that lands you
smack
in foul waters?
The best made plans…
God continues laughing.
Somewhere down the dusky road
dotted lines passing softly in the rearview
will paint an unexpected picture,
shaking disparate puzzle pieces into place,
the pieces having been siblings from creation.
Keep looking ahead,
the unfurling story behind you,
rugged with color, disturbing in greys,
fuels what is to come.
And there’s no expecting
what that may be . . .
07 Saturday Sep 2024
Feels like sitting on a hip
at the edge of a pond,
circling a couple of fingertips in warm
greening water,
waiting. . waiting. .
waiting for the world to slow down.
But it won’t.
And you know it’s not going to.
Those singular fingers dipping
in the pool, though,
connect you to something sane, a rhythm
echoing through this swirling cosmos
of which you are part,
of which you are made.
While these days and nights
and days and days and nights and nights
are nothing short of the inside of a blender,
find where you and the water meet.
Somewhere within the movement, touch
and endless noise,
a stillness–
pull from that.
12 Monday Aug 2024
Driving along
and a sudden elevator drop in my chest.
Riding that familiar riversong of sadness a moment,
I understand–ah–
my old, precious friend
is holding a conversation I’ve heard countless times.
Now I can recognize her disguise.
Funny mask, dear one,
but a confusion belies those heavy, tearful eyes.
Stress, strain, the much too muchness of things
brings you here.
Rest, love.
Hide in your cubby hole and come out
whenever you would like to sniff
the riotous wind again.
05 Monday Aug 2024
Posted in generations, movement, poems, poetry, walking
≈ Comments Off on Suspenders, belt and cane
He walks through, slow, steady,
racing stripes down the arms of his cotton shirt,
stick angled ahead of him and taking his weight,
his grandson leading in front.
Not every day suspenders and belt combine–
gotta love the full barrel belly and ambling body
rich with story.
Onward, onward to the next adventure..
From the unseen low-turned speakers,
music swirls in his wake.
20 Monday May 2024
Twisted linen in the closet:
rumpled skirt, wrinkled vest..
Who would imagine shirts
could dent.
Comical to even consider remedying that.
Seems I can not stay put.
A magnet polarized from place
when place is done.
Not that I want to be washed from the creekbed.
I’ve bolted, leapt, flown, jumped and been
catapulted;
I’m praying for a gentler crossing
this go round.
The hanging lines held in linen
are a telling road map
of more to come.
30 Saturday Dec 2023
The limitations of our fathers,
they are not ours to live by. See
and be done.
Do
and live beyond.
The next generations are here to end
that which came before.
30 Saturday Dec 2023
They rise to the occasion,
the ones you called
to a come-to-Jesus–(minus the Jesus)–and,
truly,
they break bread and drink wine.
With you.
For the first time.
Mountains of stone become sand.
Standing centuries diminish to an hour:
Movement.
You initiated it and
rise, they do;
an occasion
holding both
life
and death
because, really, how damned much time
do we have?
Really.
Grapes, and the blessing,
the bleeding,
of injury and heart,
must not be
wasted.
Moments of chance,
swim up
to our lightly closed fists.
Let the bright, fluid young creatures in.
This may be the last.
And nothing like living waters
ushers in a new year.
Upwelling.
18 Saturday Nov 2023
We save each other’s lives
a little
every day.
Follow a pointing finger,
find the child.
Hear a cry never
bellowed,
resolve the ache.
Listen through hands,
to a quaking,
a breaking
of a heart yet again,
and turnings of ages will echo
through bone.
These are callings
answered by few.
Let the unmoved move
with slightest
kindest
deepening
touch,
reach stars buried
and waiting
for a return to dark sky.
We save each other’s lives
a little
every day.
In this is more
than enough.
26 Saturday Aug 2023
Fuchsia smurf hat
and a cashmere scarf,
feet cupped in sheepskin..
it’s August
and far from cold.
Sometimes you hold yourself
in whatever way you can.
The yellow jackets are on full attack,
two stings slowly healing.
Jay carried away a green fig,
no time to pause for sweetness.
The boundaries have become sloshy,
I’m waiting for true definition.
The wait may have lost its own edges.
Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone 