Poetry

There’s a day now and then When the world is so glorious, When your children are safe and happy, When the roof has no leaks, And the furnace is working the way it’s supposed to, The bills are paid, The project is completed, And you have new ideas for things you might do. The noise […]

Mechanical music, the sound of a ghost radio station broadcast by a specter ship sailing the radio waves, no soul aboard, ghost boat steered by ghost engineers. Opposite of pirate radio. The program stumps along on untied Frankenstein boots. No announcements in the holes between the stories, only machine music played for Longer than it […]

“The only thing of value is the thing you cannot say.” Wittgenstein At King Salmon on that beautiful Sunday, my father-in-law praises the day: the sun walks across the wavetops on Humboldt Bay, three pelicans wing north, cumulonimbus puff themselves up, holding back the land. Looking out across the water to where the jetties nearly […]

Music of a liquid world Full of ebb and flow River made foundation Constant, deep and low Staccato drips of melting Hit roof and deck below Murmur of light rain Until slide and crash of snow From high up upon the roof At long last now let go

Dancing off the hillsides Inviting me outside Where clouds play, Above the canopy I normally embrace To avoid the rain. A Great Blue Heron Lumbers along Towards the sun, Oblivious to limits We take for granted On our grounds. I lace up shoes Stretching a bit And run uphill, Where my heart soars Recalling the […]

we could see the indentation left on the ground where it had stood since before the First World War. Covered up and compressed for over a century, the earth suddenly felt fresh air. Sunlight, moonlight, stars, wind and rain drew worms to the surface. Long dormant seeds split and sprout. Between what was and what […]

A couple decades difference in our ages, a dozen years as neighbors, perhaps a handful of brief chats through the lattice and hydrangeas. A few times I put your newspaper at your door so you wouldn’t have to retrieve it in bathrobe and slippers. So as not to disturb you, I bring my dog in […]

In the muddy pasture at the end of the lane black cows graze. Tufts of fur brush-stroke their backs mud-manure cakes their sides dark-wet slurry down sturdy shanks their modest beef-cow udders lurking turgid in the dark between, their occupation ripping grass and vetch with a tearing crunch, of looking up to chew, to gaze, […]

Below the vision and above the teaming soil paint straight from the grand palette is a compost of color all mixed to brown and rot. Here in the chaos of no seeming plan, out of the potent earth life is heat-stroked into being. From a bed of blood and green emergent seed sections shoot and […]

Quiet hamlet, I call home. Cirrus skyscape With abundance Of blue. Redwood friends Confiding to me, Their silent stories Of a century or more. Beaches magnificent In their repose, Beneath the history Below my feet. My delicate Bird-life friends, Sonorous in their greetings Of another tranquil Morning day Such elixir, My Trinidad Blue.

It’s only love that makes me get out of bed and walk into the wide garden again – clearing space for another gathering of flowers and my friend the honey bee While it shouldn’t be surprising      (at this point) the way things go both directions at once – it helps to be reminded that without […]

Whenever someone says that history is a lie, I think about the scar that runs the length of my scalp; I think about the crow who died in my hand. I think about the time that I let the screen door slam and pinched my sister’s index finger flat. History, they say, is written by […]