Poetry

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; […]

The daily bread,  Given on this day, Cast in poppies And blooming blackberry corners, Everything sprawled and covered. Just over the hill,  Nights feed on themselves: Fickle contests of fading light And crickets. Here, the din of thrush, Trickles of water, And a last, hushing turn of leaves On a vanishing breeze, Where doors open […]

Where’ve ya been Frank? Your tales no longer seen. The loyal neighbor, the unknown friends, the laughter at the store. There’s none of that now. Noses, to phones. Blind, leading blind. There’s no talking in line. Missing you, Frank. I see with new eyes. To some it was exactly that, a paradise in disguise. Can […]

Were the endless reigns Of chainsaws lumbering, While bobbing along Crystal clear waters In the Trinity River, Away from home. I was warned of The pending rains And endless clouds, But could only smell Essence of conifers In the healing waters. The tastes of freedom Dwarfed my senses Need for pleasure, Where beauty determined What […]

No cat hair where you slept on the chair next to me. My milk glass – safe from your eager sips, or cereal stolen before I could sit down to eat. Or sitting on the window sill watching busy birds at the feeder, while you waited for me to scoop the last bite of breakfast […]

Were the endless reigns Of chainsaws lumbering, While bobbing along Crystal clear waters In the Trinity River, Away from home. I was warned of The pending rains And endless clouds, But could only smell Essence of conifers In the healing waters. The tastes of freedom Dwarfed my senses Need for pleasure, Where beauty determined What […]

No cat hair where you slept on the chair next to me. My milk glass – safe from your eager sips, or cereal stolen before I could sit down to eat. Or sitting on the window sill watching busy birds at the feeder, while you waited for me to scoop the last bite of breakfast […]

The place of my birth is reaching out to me like Janus, with its tentacles, sea-salty and inebriated. We remember the ocean as children: watching the water flow in and out, the glistening anemones and the sand dollars, the sea urchins, the fresh air and our mothers in their dresses. I gave the first boy […]

(and all who have been victimized by gun violence and dehumanization) In the only photo I’ve seen, the only one on file, he wears a Star Wars shirt and closed-mouth smile The rest, having not met him, is for me to imagine but seeing him next to his mother, I see compassion I see a […]

…Fifty-two, fifty-three, and fifty-four Are the number of years this young redwood Lived, my son. That’s tragic, yes, but we should Learn from nature how to live. Let’s learn more. Starting at its core, let’s count fourteen rings. That’s when your mom was born. Let’s count two more. One and two. That’s when I opened […]

   run to see beyond the trees five hundred or so snow geese in their vees – telling travelers’ tales to the island below. and here, down here, a thousand robins sing their nest-building song – so soon? and the long-tailed ducks? will they leave tonight? on the fifth of march we saw eight, maybe […]