16 Wednesday Nov 2022
Sun fog fills the valley,
white upon white within white;
snow ice holds to even the air.
I woke feeling my womb,
warm, moving, red–
her warmth and my heart one.
Life doesn’t hold us for long,
best to make room for all her aspects.
15 Tuesday Nov 2022
Posted in approaching, night, poems, poetry
≈ Comments Off on Edge of the storm
Blue spruce holds in her generous arms
the whipped cream snow junco ushered in
two nights ago.
In deep dark came his hooded head
and spread wings at the window glass.
As the wind changed, from still
to sweeping, he danced from the blackness
all flutter, gentle and strong,
up the door pane, over to full window beside
and back again.
Back, forth, up, down,
when do songbirds ever enter the night and dance?
Here, at the front edge of the storm,
he arrived, to sit
finally on the low lip of the door frame
and look in with yellow-orange beak
and open breast.
After his hilly flitting away
the snow began falling.
And I smile at the generous arms of the blue spruce
who perches the birds every day.
12 Saturday Nov 2022
Chittering morning birds pull me from the page–
eyes move from word toward sound,
where their light hopping feet bring me to flight
from bare branch, through 17 degree air,
to bark-covered lattice above the front door.
Frost, like gold flakes, falls from their trail in sunlight.
They have such great conversations.
11 Friday Nov 2022
We find ourselves
eventually, or again and again,
at the thought–“I’m this old and
still
I’m not over it.”
Whatever it is.
But with that tiny cruelty and judgment,
if we’re honest,
we can feel the rope tied about us and yanking from
without;
The culture’s voice and ultimatum,
no doubt familial message too,
tugs invisibly and hard.
See the rope for what it is,
make it visible.
Then, only then, can we find ourselves
eventually, and again and again.
28 Friday Oct 2022
What, then, is born
of disconnection that bleaches the Soul,
fragments Spirit and sends it flying
never to land,
to land in place where it may feed and be fed,
stoke the tender embers of Beauty herself?
What have we traded to get
things?
Things.
Paper money and all the rest, what is it
but nothing,
nothing, especially
when we make it everything and carve ourselves
and one another up
for more of it?
Call back,
Call back,
Call back yourself.
Call back every shard and ripple,
each precious drop, and voluminous chunk.
None but people bringing themselves back toward wholeness
can right this ship we share.
Please, let us remember,
let us remember all
to bring ourselves
Home again.
20 Thursday Oct 2022
Posted in approaching, beauty, poems, poetry, return
≈ Comments Off on Singing through dawn
Coyote’s been singing through dawn,
calling sun back
from behind the mountain with quivering jaw.
She sounds young,
experimenting with her prowess.
Golden locust leaves hang silently, cold,
awaiting their restful drop.
The pale grasses sing too,
while sagebrush sustains Earth’s bass notes.
Turning of a new day can hold us,
more steadily than any mother..
we need only remember.
19 Wednesday Oct 2022
Yesterday time gulped back on itself,
this existence a beautiful nothing amongst endless
somethings.
Hearing my mother speak for the first time;
The voice of a friend long dead and gone returning
after decades.
Wind of another eon rose up, up,
rose up tickling the inside of my ears, neck, head,
vibration forgotten here, forgotten and now remembered–
How to find my way back? No.
Not back.
How to usher forth life from there,
origin of all creation
humming harmonious,
honey of blossoms never seen
but felt and heard.
Honey flowing slow, slowly, from cracks
in ancient enormity of stone.
13 Thursday Oct 2022
Day rises over mountains here,
between spiderweb strands and curved grass heads,
each breeze taking
more leaves toward winter.
Autumn is abrupt,
a visitor with next stop clearly on the books.
How can time be slowed when it feels gulped?
Sleep is a banging need
while what must be done must be done.
Soon, a long deep breath,
soon, soon
before the first snows…
01 Thursday Sep 2022
Apples are falling from their trees
spreading sweetness to the ants and the air.
I keep wishing for a horse to feed them to as we walk along.
Skunk fans her tail at my approach
and waddles into the weeds through a living cave of stem and leaf.
Sun holds to the distant side of the mountain
but warmth and light are rising.
Laughing as I scuff along, there’s coyote–
she’s wandered into the domestic zone
to sniff things out, yes, and to stir up every dog
in the neighborhood.
Yip yip and garble bark grff.
The graveyard rests out past the hollyhocks,
walking by each day settles me.
Raw, unpainted crosses, tilted
and cracked.
Rounded mounds of earth, peaceful
and heavy.
Can’t help but smell autumn this morning.
06 Friday May 2022
What kind of oppression is this
for women to hate their own bodies into submission?
To tuck, flatten, cut, shape, build, color,
paint, starve, carve, feed, hide, cover, sculpt
and bind
such unique beauty and presence
to conform to something else?
For someone else?
Many are even convinced they do it
for themselves.
What, and whom, does it serve?
How long have we lied to,
hated, pushed away, contrived
and disappeared ourselves?
It goes beyond gender.
(Choose any system and look at how
we’ve turned it against ourselves.)
Ever noticed a peacock, tiger, or,
hell, a goat
do the same?
How ridiculous.
And cruel.
To what god have we bowed
when discarding the body we have been given,
one never to be created twice–not ever to be seen again–
to be wanted? appreciated? included?
Ohhhh let’s gather another tribe instead,
shake ourselves loose from those heavy chains
clamped on our wrists so long ago
we couldn’t possibly remember.
Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone 