Poetry

last week’s respects     to august warmth are paid and spent and in october’s deepening chill     boletes pop       emboldened from beneath the backyard meanwhile undrowning     in an airborne lake of fog hawthorn pomes crimson   and we with what structures we have built     might aspire to anchor the webwork of orb weavers who wait     silent in the autumn […]

The Geese It’s a wondrous thing when their migration cycles back to our fields The sky filled with song of renewed faith and hope, Or is that me? A visceral feeling A distant echoing sound that draws me back to self Elevating the beauty that surrounds us to familiar memories The rains come The pastures […]

When nothing becomes me And the mystery is done, Hummingbirds will continue To feed on the endless florets Dangling in that wistful tree Where I would sit for hours Alone, in my garden. Kirk Gothier

Autumn is flying in On the wings of banded pigeons Gathering as they do As the days grow shorter. It’s ripening With apples, pears, and blackberries Fragrant in the late summer heat. It sings out With insects in the warmth Of night chasing the Golden glow of a Harvest sunset Below the horizon. Autumn is […]

summer excuses itself & steps out onto the porch for one last look at the falling sun before taking up with the fog muttering something indecipherable about the allure of mysterious women summer’s child begins to suspect this may have been her last season of running in shorts through tall grass wanting nothing more than […]

Yellow leaves litter our camp in under the pepperwoods. Dust rests atop the meadow’s tinder-dry grasses. Fine silt rises with each flip-flop-clad footstep down to the river. Dwindling flow lengthens cobblestone’s mossy beards. By late afternoon, sunlight is half-hearted. Wind moves upriver. Kids, playing in the deep pool, quiet. Preschoolers shiver, towels wrapped around shoulders. […]

There’s a big Black fly in my house. It passes behind me, In front of me, Beside me, careening wildly, Never seeming to settle Where I could get a good shot at it. It annoys me, Perplexes me, Would seem to be taunting me If there was room in that microscopic brain For such intent. […]

As the Sun rises Blindly touching what matters, My heart is soaring. Kirk Gothier

This life  This year    This month     This week      This day Someone has stirred up The rhythms of our worldy existence And left it swirling     Twirlin      Unfurling Into directions we couldn’t foresee Unpredictable little things Predictable big things Unschedule-able little parts of everyday    Each one tripping     Up the next […]

A salty mist falls upon my face As I walk beside the sea My mind set loose to wander While the waves churn endlessly. The dogs make circles in the sand Running to and fro, they find A feather, a stone, a crab’s empty shell Once part of the ocean, now lie. A fishing boat […]

The language I teach you won’t obliterate wordless thought but leave space for silence and sensation. It counts, categorizes, but also wonders at wild, uncountable, unnamable things. We’ll send each other messages ripe with meaning, gradually growing a shared comprehension, and all talk stops when we encounter the incomprehensible. Let’s not fill in the blanks; […]