I feel better today
The music I chose was old but new
while the morning was bathed in fog
and my Dad got to see the northern lights last night
far away from the bog
The worries of the world aren't far away
but there's no sense in letting them own me today
a new year started
time for me to venture out into the world
She doesn't care
about people her charge is all of it
the seasons feed the changes
that grow all things
she loves
The universe is vast but we won that great numbers game
the lottery for life
and there must be more out there
wondering about here
and until I know what else there is to know
all that matters is kindness
Midwinter Sun
The holidays settled
just past a solstice
and the world was dark
in many ways
The rain was too much
and people forgot their way
that kindness is all
that matters
A field lay north
of a south line of firs
that the sun didn't peak past
since the fall
The sky became clear
and the light came over top
limbs laden with needles
warming tangled tall grass
A bit of good news
at the same time delivered
and I remembered the thing
I forgot
Darkness doesn't cast
though the days shorten through summer
sun from it's laziness will wake
and we won't suffer the darkness to last
Mourning
I'm mourning a place
even though I'm not gone yet
I know it's language and think often of it's people
then and now
I was born on the land of the prairie chicken
transplanted many times
grew and thrived on this land near this sea
But soon enough I'll leave
her it's names still on my tongue
pilgrim to a strange land
new words to learn again
The fog came back today
September's secret to good fishing
a flurry of fish rush to the river
as it rises on the tide
I walked the river long ago
when the children were young
finding a fish on a dragons tooth
swung long and low
losing the big fish
to lady Caroline
Today it's different
I leave the rivers be
and search in the salt
with red eyed minnows....
I met brother heron on that river though
and he follows me everywhere I go
I stand with brother heron
hallowed in his water
swift sister kingfisher
chatters from her sky and trees
We three worship
river, lake, salt chuck church
hunting secret swimming truth
and silver splashing dreams
A full moon over coal-cars on the edge of a canyon
low cut silver tan hay stubble
The same moon stares down at the peak thrust up from serpentine
high grey green gloss wreathed in black
My headlights peeking down an empty highway, no music blaring
My mind clear like the thin cold air
Grey Figures in the Mist
No line in the darkness
Dark shadows like little trees
Sparse with one branch
Splashing behind me
Smells like grey salt
and briney things swimming in schools
Morning clouds in the haze
white feathers thud to a stop
water erupts
Blood on the beach
Leaving Sky
It's not something in the orange
instead the dark grey line into the blue
with the trees back-lit
from a gentle night sky
that hasn't yet said goodbye to the sun
The grass is taller than I am
and the rain left it heavy and wet
and the truck is loaded and gassed up
and I'm ready to get
Mountains, Two Parts
One night the lake was black as space
Reflecting stars
And the big mountain slope was half in shadow
But the other half the color of the full moon
Her trees wreathed with snow like scales on a fish
and her mood alive and terrible
She was alive in that place
Communing with the stars
Her slopes shone like metal
And her mood like a red hot sun at noon
Talking the long language of planets, a niche
and I knew she remembered a crucible
I pass her slopes often
and she's not been awake since
I wonder in the long peel of geologic time
did I see her wake once in a million(s) of years
and the lake's young depths, are no longer afraid
Peach Fuzz
Trees are like mold
seas like overripe spots
filled with dew
It's told
she'll sing new auts
when we're through