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 Thursday Aug 2025
Posted in approaching, fertile, honoring, light, poems, poetry, prayer, seasons, transition
≈ Comments Off on Sliver moon pink
Sliver moon pink
in morning’s blooming light.
Baby raccoon sleeps, the Mountain presides.
Chipmunks race by, tails high.
Goldfinches feast on the generosity of sunflowers,
dry and nodding.
Soon, summer’s loud pulsing concert,
the countless crickets singing to Spirit,
will go quiet.
For now, warm nights still meet bare skin
and open windows connect neighbors
in their slumbering sighs
as the length of our days shortens..
09 Sunday Jul 2023
Today is a tiny girl
in a dress half deep with velvet,
her finger twirling a curl of fine brown hair,
staring off fixedly
in the opposite direction from her big family.
Today is walking along with dragonfly
while a frog sings across the ravine
and buck, broad with his own velvet,
grazes in new season antlers
through ponderosa sweetened midday sun.
It’s a sticking point in the neck,
a filling of time,
the nectar-drip of writings so rich
two pages fill me up and stir until
I’m unable to sit still–
such beauty must be moved.
Familiar faces in the coffee shop
belong to no one I know.
Summer days of blueberries and salmon,
liquid shadows in the breeze,
heat layering in the cradle of this valley,
magnolia blossoms
and wondering, in tolerable doses,
what could possibly be next?
27 Saturday May 2023
Posted in abundance, approaching, change, history, honoring, movement, poems, poetry, transition, violence
≈ Comments Off on These are the last days
These are the last days
of watching the valley open slowly
her soft green eyes,
of waiting for jackrabbit to come for breakfast,
of the coyote pack ushering in each full moon
with choral rhapsodies,
of tarantula pilgrims crossing the sagebrush mesa.
These are the last days of grit and clay dust flying
through any open window,
last of the sheriffs far more dangerous than the criminals,
of dried chiles and turquoise sky
against pink hills,
of churches holding centuries of prayer deep
in adobe walls,
of a boiling pot of cultural conflict
passed generation to generation to generation
onward making anyone arriving
within their own lifetime
a tourist.
Listen to the wildflowers and thunder, though,
and it becomes obvious–
they don’t care about endless strife.
They celebrate life and sing upward to our supportive sun.
These are the last days preceeding
the very first…
12 Saturday Mar 2022
A place I have become,
with no knowing where home is.
I carry home with me and in her, them, him I reside.
Words only bring us to the doorway,
imagination opens the door.
In this extended departure
the landscape broadens, roads disappear,
names change, expectation reveals its hollowness,
and desert mountain awaits.
A place I have become, moving upon this earth
without long plan, without people on the receiving end,
with nothing of permanence.
Laughter will replace fears and doubts soon enough.
For now, chasing details fills the days.
This place I become will carry me to the grave,
wherever and whenever that shall be.
In the meantime, feeding the soil, sitting with what is,
allowing for what will be, dropping off
assumptions,
and listening softening listening softening. . .
I want to know this place deeply and dearly
before I go.
27 Sunday Feb 2022
Posted in movement, poems, poetry, transition, water
≈ Comments Off on Where rivers join
Where rivers join
goodbye and hello are fingers entwined,
one feeling like another in swift,
painted tangles and currents.
Waters from here
meet
Waters from there.
Confusion and torrent, swirl and coherence.
Holding on is a goodbye with wings,
watch it fly away~
23 Wednesday Feb 2022
A new movement is afoot,
with steps unknown. There are none.
Enter the River, whose banks
support you now.
Fear may be stripping away, removing the old,
debriding the wounds, a turpentine in the veins.
Let it be.
She beckons. Enter, and be moved.
You will learn–they will teach you.
Call up faith, rebuilding the trust you think
has been lost.
When ready, your own feet will guide and
root you deeply in place where waters and winds
may dance you, earth holding close.
In time, in time,
the Way emerges…
12 Saturday Feb 2022
Somehow it is February and 79 degrees.
What a wonder.
We have entered a new world, mostly of our own making.
Turning back is a fantasy holding some together,
imagining it isn’t happening holding others.
Our earth mama talks with us, through us, always–
she shows more loudly by the year
the honest consequences of our actions.
Birds sing loudly on the other side of the open door,
more kinds than usually heard in chorus.
They bathe bathe bathe and chitter, twinkling songs..
A magical day,
yet strange.
Prayer flies through the open door that we all learn to listen,
listen and praise, find ourselves on our knees ready
for change that serves Life.
30 Sunday Jan 2022
Posted in poems, poetry, the road, transition, wonder
≈ Comments Off on May the way rise up
This new dawn
brings a big swale of soul-saving,
a no-net-now, Lord help me, cliff-dive into
open waters disguised as dry, dry, dryness of
desert mountain.
Plants rattle distant leaves,
winds pitch tiny gravel, clack click click,
down unseen scree slopes.
Scooping myself out of what no longer serves,
serving myself into a richer soup
the likes of which I’ve not yet known,
gulp,
answering the call looks a whole lot like crazy,
stepping into an unfinished painting
feels well beyond reason.
Good thing neither much matter.
Ho ho wah ho ho wah ho,
may the way rise up, rise up to meet,
Wah ho ho Hey.
26 Wednesday Jan 2022
Posted in approaching, poems, poetry, prayer, presence, transition
≈ Comments Off on Lights are richly set
Ever dismantle a life?
Good lord, it’s a lot of work.
The giving away and selling, shuffling,
sorting, fussing and figuring.
Seems easy. Until you do it.
Then this liquid giggle burbles up
as you find you’d never intended to do
this thing that any spare,
and some not so spare,
time is suddenly dedicated to.
Now, leaning towards a future
you’ve not the faintest whiff of a clue about
as it pulls onward,
you stumble spin, slowly, staring out
in all directions,
including the one that’s got you in its tractor beam..
Zzzzzorp.
Dismantle, dismantle,
ditch this, heave that, pawn that,
huddle at this memory’s blast radius,
shake off the hold of that stubborn monkey,
you know–getting on with it,
despite the maniacal grip of safety,
security, and the other obsessions of mind:
Possessing illusions isn’t wealth, I tell ya.
So, here goes, scraping out the last from the burrow,
to leave only pounded earth.
What comes next rests just behind the heavy velvet curtain,
lights are richly set,
the theater hushes in the dark…
Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone 