20 Tuesday Dec 2016
Roots set in frosty, frosty ground
hugged by grit and worm and mole,
the slowlystretchinggrowing silence of
tips touching stonewetsoft.
Ears needn’t hear, nor eyes see-
vitality cups darkness
and nutrients find pathways
up up up
to light of day, and sharp starry sky.
The underearth knows quiet
and no-hurry, no-worry.
Sit awhile atop roots and wonder
just wherehowwho far
your own earth arms wriggle.
15 Thursday Dec 2016
Riparian corridor
in orange and yellow
ribbons between greening hills.
Brown shaggy dog trots,
with pink frisbee flopping,
toward the river.
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?
16 Sunday Oct 2016
30 Friday Sep 2016
A rock stands in your path.
A big one.
It’s the same damned rock you’ve walked smack into countless times,
decade after decade,
despite the changing terrain.
You walk the mapless territory, silently, wondering… how on earth?
Do you go around?
Climb over?
Finally hammer the blasted thing to pieces?
Your choice, always.
Fun part is-
this time
your decision may be unlike
any other.
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.
23 Tuesday Aug 2016
I can’t speak to you from here.
From here where I don’t listen.
But if I stop
circling and
running and
dodging
and
reaching..
If I lay down armaments
and armour
both weighing, separating,
isolating
me
from
me
and
me from you.. If
I lay myself down
upon your buried curving roots,
this bodily circulation
will remember
a tree-based rhythm,
an earthly pulse.
Without effort
the music changes.
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.
29 Friday Jul 2016
Not leaves
but ashes
fall.
What bits land,
finding their way through closed windows,
into lungs,
are the remains
of your house,
your physical memories blazed.
I hesitate to breathe,
resisting
what is true.
With each opening of the door,
grief swirls,
covers the floor,
in grey, white, black.
It, too, will one day join this soil,
grow new forest,
stronger community.
But now,
staying inside,
I watch what has replaced rain.
13 Wednesday Jul 2016
The season of talking grass brings rattlesnakes,
grasshoppers blooming out each foot fall,
the head of a rabbit left by a skilled carnivore-
this, and more,
among seed heads clapping in the wind.
Moisture snuck deep underground,
like the losing end of relating.
Still,
it’s
simply
promise
of fecundity yet to come.
Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone 