Here We Are

 It has been said

“I want us to grow old together”

yet who imagines 

that lively face punished by time’s desert

those strong brown legs bowed over uncertain feet

Once I imagined us children together 

chasing tadpoles in the summer creek

fingers blackberry stained

clothes red with mud

It is not youth I am after 

there is something like a dream 

in these days where each gets designed upon waking

canvas of hours

paints made from what is between us

nearly a hundred fifty years 

gathering essences of plant and rock

observing insect wings

finding direction in the trajectory of falling snow

palette of petals of late and early daylight

We are as the air passing through aspens

having been in storied places

no longer who or what

we are now feathers 

we are now wafting campfire tales

with purpose 

growing old together, how very weird.

On the Return from Harsh Times

 

We nurture what we love

still the leaves can drop 

decline begins its withering

life seems to run away from us

dragging the cherished ones

into its wilderness

Stop! I cried! 

At my side the hands that still

intransigence 

touch me like desert thorns 

After putting used plates in the dishwasher 

lining up forks and spoons in the washing tray

combing tufts from the dog

speaking of why a screen door is needed

After watering every leaf in the garden

I ran to find the new leaves of summer

grape vines climbing the trellis

borage seeding itself

jasmine, gardenia, wisteria, begonia 

This euphorbia had dropped its leaves

not one by one

but rashly after one day on the shady porch 

it shrugged them off as if in a fever

declaring itself over the changes 

we brought it to the other shade 

now it thrives 

There is not a solution for everything

I try to accept that 

bitter biting taste

is it in penance or communion

is there a difference?

Love poem

Your hands upon the strings of your magical voice 
might cause the grass to flower 

the crows to bring gifts

hummingbirds to trace notes in the sky with their wings

I can see the wind in your eyes 

your fingers move with the eagle 

soaring 

finding the invisible 

parts of air 

below you  

pulse of the hot earth 

matches my heartbeat 

with your rhythms 

Together we are the hunters  

of the vanishing yellow birds 

of the long-tusked elephants 

to gather them together in words 

and sounds  

before reckless tides sweep them away 

Together we will not be myth 

but truth  

not promise 

but real as the shuddering leaves  

of the midday winds

those winds of July becoming August

here in the small house of big dreams

May 20 2022

 Between Santa Fe and Albuquerque 

dust and smoke litter the air

into brownness 

soft yellow hues where sunlight is lost

distant fires prompted in wind

rush down weedy arroyos

half size tumbleweeds scurry over asphalt 

singed leaves separated from branches

form wind cones in the parking lot

joined by cottonwood fluff

if the soft chaos had been after a pillow fight 

there would have been ghosts of laughter

take a deep breath

the scents of spring do linger

for now

May 16 2021

 Yearning

This morning I dipped my fingers into the dirt

Twice I reached into the soil

Once it was crumbly, hard, and rough 

my fingers scraped at the surface 

moved little 

rough rocks buried halfway stuck like dimes in concrete

Then, under a layer of fallen juniper berries and dried up leaf ends

dirt like sand

textured nearly as dust

dry as dunes

dirt I could move

dirt without the property of embracing itself 

Where is the mycelium bound ground

musky dark soil

laced with decayed root structure

ah, to dip my fingers in fragrant loam

give the earth tiny seeds

where it will then weave mats upon the earth 

leaves and flowers dense beside my path

Return, yes, to the roots 

shady green places

of long ago 

to call my own

Bonus poem for NaPoWriMo 2022

 last day of #NaPoWriMo

On the cusp of the third house

today there is an eclipse

for a moment the light is obscured

Astrological twilight at midday

stars come out

constellations declare themselves

Outside the window of words

are paths worn smooth under the feet of our progeny 

here a patch of poison oak

there a drop down into thorny arroyo 

In the Noh play 

I watched the fierce mama lion 

but I chose the way of the wildflowers

So I gesture at the lion

while wearing a crown of oak leaves 

unable to catch my breath or run 

where are my words 

in the ruins at dusk at midday 

All that is left here

a smooth rock to rest upon

as day returns 

you watch with me 

while the constellations vanish into the light 



April 30 2022

 Laid out along the land raised out of the sea

the town is made for walking in the salty air

you sample its wares like a picnic of salads

telescopes line the windows of one shop

another has shoes you wear in the forest 

here is a house that used to be on a murder mystery show

there are water towers like lighthouses without lights

my favorite house where I grew up

nearly a hundred fifty miles south

was one with a water tower

inside they had arranged lights into constellations high overhead 

this is why my biggest dreams have always been about altering place like that

any space can be that canvas

even the edge of a city parking lot 

#NaPoWriMo

April 29 2022

 Women were long the plant wisdom keepers

important herbs and spices

mushrooms that bring back life or take it away, to uncover secrets of mind

ways to extract or brew 

passed woman to woman over centuries

Bark of willow

tea of pennyroyal 

powdered turmeric root

gel of aloe Vera leaf

leaf of coleus and basil 

Over time plant knowledge was bound into books

codified and credited to male lineage

women of herbal knowledge called witches

unlike men sworn to do no harm

healing herbs called poison

Here in the high desert 

home to thorns and brilliant skies

medicine women and poets turn over the soil of place and circumstance 

restore cycles of groundwater 

take their names from the natural world

bind themselves to healing planet and soul

bring forward canopies of cool green leaves

elixirs of well-being 

inoculation of the feminine 

paths to acceptance 

ways to peace  

#NaPoWriMo

April 28 2022

 You might have seen one or more

the indoor ponds

tall Victorian style greenhouse room

trees flowers scent of still waters

feel of luxurious times gone by

It was a resort

this room of plants and pond deserted 

probably it was one of those times tourists stayed away

as was often the case on our island 

blame it on the volcano 

This brings to mind things I will never understand

those so called bucket list wishes

to see a live volcano 

to watch lava flow 

except when it is happening 

no not that

And the matter at hand

here on this indoor lake 

a black swan 

sets sights on me from the opposite shore

takes off across the water 

straight for me

chases me right out of the room

These are the elements of desertion

my least favorite experiences 

other than actual hostility 

where I suspect it was my words

words that came out poorly 

like a cake that sticks to the pan

or a plant given water that rots its roots

you find out too late 

that you did it wrong 

#NaPoWriMo

April 27 2022

 This good dog appreciates morning

nose to the air

I do as he does 

each deep breath carries a new scent

bark and leaves

something like eucalyptus 

warming dirt

car exhaust on Route 66

I don’t mind that the storied road 

is there off to the left

nation’s travel artery 

here like a promise of good things to come

our driveway was once an alley to a parking lot

right on Route 66 itself 

now bricked up 

we are as close as ever 

without the world 

the uprooted

having their way with us 

Life has taught me about people

about highways and byways

about claiming space

pied a terre 

sheltering space amidst the roar and hum

being grounded 

what meaning there is in all the phrases

the phrases of place and roots 

I am home 

#NaPoWriMo

April 26 2022

 Once I took my little girls fishing. 

It was because it was a life experience I thought they should have. 

A life experience on the order of ocean swimming. 

Not that I had ever fished my own self or even wanted to fish.

The thing was, fishing presented itself. 

There was a place meant to bring children to fish. 

It was a couple of big water filled holes with willow trees on the banks. 

There were logs to sit on. 

In the water there were fountains, a thing that detracted or distracted or seemed unnatural. 

Like the velveeta cheese bait. 

And yet here in this experience I discovered something. 

When you fish, the world changes into a place of becoming.

I knew this as we squeezed the cheese rounds onto the hooks. 

The little girls were dismayed at the process, the hooks, the idea of hurting the fish. 

I was ready to talk right then about becoming vegetarian. 

They were not interested in giving up eating animals, although I could see something deep within them squirm and sigh. 

What happened then is I showed them about sitting with the world and being more like a tree.

I showed them about absorbing the light on the water until they were that light. 

We sat with our rods and lines like Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer.

It all became as familiar as brushing teeth. 

We each caught a trout. 

To have that success with the velveeta and bamboo poles was satisfying as finding an opal in the dirt. 

After that on a summer night at Faria Beach we ran out onto the sand at one in the morning. 

The grunion were running. 

We grabbed at them as they flung themselves onto the wet sand.

The beach was transformed into a sea of flashing silver. 

This was not fishing like the other time. 

These are my only two experiences catching fish to eat. 

The hole in the ground, that was as if in another lifetime, fishing in mountain streams had been as natural a thing as walking to the library.

#NaPoWriMo

April 25 2022

 We have these fires and smoke in the air

consuming the wildflowers 

the piñon the juniper the Douglas fir

the quaking aspen the bristlecone pine

hours north of the city

the fields of wonder in the land of enchantment 

Once in the rain between volcanic eruptions

there was a woman and her cello

music winding through the air

from a picnic shelter

later we were together again

writing with the women of the island 

Someone asked her about her notebook

that place where she kept her words 

a flimsy drugstore pad you might use for your grocery list

I don’t want these things to be too precious

she said 

Thinking of her cello just out of the rain

the fires eating up ancient trees and fresh spring flowers

elsewhere seeing tattered plastic tents

piles of stuff looking like your discards 

there at open land by city intersections

“the office” where the dispossessed stand with cardboard signs

all that we cannot hold onto

what is clung to when there is nearly nothing left 

#NaPoWriMo

April 24 2022

 Where did I come from?

I asked my mother

Sleeping under the stars 

she said

under the canopy of night

at the base of granite precipices 

amidst mountain dogwood 

in the sorrel beneath a sequoia tree

I could see myself 

threaded through the night sky

brought to earth

like landed butterfly

sprouted seed pod

without wings

waiting in the clover to be found

#NaPoWriMo

April 23 2022

 What is its story

this closed down place

where the pandemic pulled the life out

Where are its people 

what are they doing

are they still here?

I’ve often wondered 

at the forlorn places

there was one I loved much

once a hot springs resort 

nirvana amongst the oaks 

plagued by spirit blight

for decades now

empty of people 

Therein resides the ghost of the one who first claimed it as his 

screaming to his death in the madhouse

there have been floods 

the person built entirety reduced to debris

a serial owner crushed under a falling tree

written in the bones of place

is a curse

there is no path to success here

This is that which rejects 

business and profit

it demands to be free of charge and lien

for the intrepid who venture 

into the hot water 

not every tree rock and stream

are meant to be owned

April 22 2022

 Morning brings the birds of summer

harbingers of long dusty days

Like an old friend

hummingbird stopped by our window

peered into the room as if to see who might be setting out feeders

The aspens have announced a challenge

too long in pots

root systems inadequate for their plethora of leaves

the oak too 

had roots long encased in a metal cage

now cannot push enough water all the way to the ends of branches

Incantations and worm casings

inoculation of truffle water

soft shells from cast off butterfly emergences

we will sing songs of survival

in its time the leaves of fall will nourish the trees companions

it will sigh into winter 

deeper roots of spring and summer having brought life essence forward 

We humans with our moving habits and city styles

barely adequate to the exhortations and exhalations of our earth 

interrogate these other beings

in hope they answer with life abundant

#NaPoWriMo

#earthdayeveryday

April 21 2023

 Poetry is meant to be heard

words rolled in your mouth

like vintage spirits 

phrases held to the light

as you would a transparent gem

Longfellow showed us how words prance 

he parts the thicket to the shimmering world beyond



Plath gave us other worlds

conversations with her muses

tangled ropes of introspection 

familiar as the warmth of our own beds

Harjo translates songs of sky and earth

circles us like eagles over the land

folk ballads place at our feet

even as we sit in some chair

in our quiet house

alone

Read poetry with your voice

let your whole being into the cadence

these are the songs drawn from the well

of all of us 

#napowrimo

April 20 2022

 In the preparation of the yard 

detritus of prior uses had accumulated

four truckloads now removed

we have uncovered a place for a secret garden 

surrounded by walls 

Today I build a trellis for grapes 

Montmorency cherry will go in the ground

a small trailer will become the fourth side

shielding the secrets 

maybe it will be yellow and white

made in the middle of the last century

like our house 

I have been reading up on trees

the cherry and the oak need companions 

oak will grow best in place from an acorn 

who knew a seedling would surpass its massive cousin while we watch

The leaves of the oak consume my curiosity 

from the window their colors look autumnal 

several times a day I go out to study them

green as ferns in summer 

tinged with red in their newness

as if like other sorts of living things

they have blood in their veins

wisps of flowers grow within

clusters of leaves 

delicate as cat whiskers

while the grape flowers open 

one one hundredth that size

exuding the fragrance of butterfly wings 

calling in hummingbirds

announcing spring 

#napowrimo

April 19 2022

 The Ghost Winds in the city

churn tree seeds into flurries

like snow

millions of flake seeds swirl

and gather in drifts

they ride the winds 

litter lawns

stop in my hair

It is my first spring here

should red bud petals join in

like confetti

it will be a storm of seeds of flowers

attended by formal butterflies 

white and black

red tuxedo clad finches

rainbow hued doves

flying ahead of summer 

#napowrimo

April 18 2022

 It is a town of sorts

with a name

famous really 

for a movie made there 

It used to be 

most summer days

where the foggy mists

wrapped cypress into obscurity

rather lonely 

isolated down this or that narrow country road 

There along the fabled coast highway 

a tower of bells stands as a monument 

an artist thought to honor a young life lost

a loss that gave back life 

through pieces of living self

to other people

even to another child and her children 

otherwise never to have been born

There is a sign

it mentions that highwaymen took that boy in Italy

song of the bells brings voice and melody to the transformative acts that followed upon tragedy

Here is proof 

all was not lost

a sculptural telling 

all we are eventually 

is the sound of our once being

clanging of bells now heard 

now silent 

#NaPoWriMo

April 17 2022

 In this hard dried ground

in Eastern New Mexico

are footprints of long ago beings

dinosaurs have altogether left the earth

here they stepped

worm castings too remain

unintentional legacies 

Our people have stories

of resurrection 

bodies digging themselves out of the ground

wearing tattered flesh 

once corpses leaving the embalming table

pets come back from the sematary 

changed 

Jurassic returns

most famously the risen crucified man

One Easter Sunday I sat on a lawn

in Honolulu 

there in front of the hundred or so of us gathered 

was a man dressed in white

his hands in the air

Ram Dass repeated a dozen times

He is risen 

sunlight came and went

scattered raindrops dampened our clothes and skin

There with the author of

Be Here Now

there was only that present moment

scent of plumeria 

we, almost one with the air 

#NaPoWriMo

April 16 2022

 The peculiarity of people

the insistence we occupy the apex of all things

shows in how we now protect the world around us

from ourselves 

to keep rivers from being turned into hydroelectric sources

we redesignate them as persons 

to be safe from human folly

nature becomes human

in our eyes

people who live more harmoniously with the natural world

see within it our ancestors 

the spirit world has always incorporated humans who are gone 

but still present

The dove in the back yard

who flies to the wall when I come out

the trees who tell me secrets of being

when I pause to hear their story

even the new grape vines

lift their leaves in different ways 

having their moodiness of being

My friend sees his people in the rocks 

on the golf course a tree has grown a human like face near the ground

is it the walls or the plain open interior of this house 

that contains the footsteps of those who came before

Have you seen the rewilded rivers 

alive with spawning salmon

churning towards the sea again 

set free? 

#napowrimo

April 15 2022

 Once I was a small child

in my house there were two big people

they went off to work 

then my own person came to be with me

Miss Carol knew to put my eggs back in the oven with a little butter

so there would be no slimy parts 

When the weather turned warm

the big people stuffed me into going out clothes

drove across the Golden Gate Bridge

red sign 25¢

At Ocean Beach I got to take off my 

shoes and socks 

find sand dollars with a perfect leaf shape on top

pile the sand into little Mt Tamalpais

I fell into yearning

at the Japanese Tea Garden

it was the small little person sized maple trees

the entire garden of contours 

I longed to climb all over them

sift through for seeds 

to grow my own small garden

All this was more delicious 

because of the intervals

space between adventures 

big people out of my spheres 

except Miss Carol 

my own person

#NaPoWriMo

April 14 2022

 Here are the windmills at Zaanse Schans

where the wind turns granite into limestone powder 

here is where paint gets colors

pigments known to us through the old masters

     Cafe Terrace at Night

     Cottages Before a Stormy Sky

these windmills older than when 

my particular long ago ancestors 

people from near here

were thrust aboard a ship for the new world 

orphans in the streets 

the homeless of that time

had life been gentler for them 

where would I be? 

Is this image one I love so

for the stirrings of ancestral memory 

a familiar sight 

to someone far far back in my line 

a girl who learned to make paint

and perhaps set this scene to a board and hung it on her wall? 

#NAPOWRIMO

April 13 2022

It is the contours of the land

that describe home

mountain silhouette 

shows off its iconic structure

breaking of day light extends 

sky border through newest chartreuse leaves

rendering yellows translucent 

geese not yet taking to the air

this is the time of day the world inhales 

setting itself for what is to come

before the nameless winds curl their mighty force

before the people of mayhem gather their weapons

here apart from the smoldering wildfires of civilization 

is the quiet earth breathing 

beneath its lightening sky

#NAPOWRIMO

April 12 2022

 Upon the land where I was a child

poppies and lupine now paint the hills

in a wash of Monet brush color

For my friends still there

overlooking the swells and folds

where scrub oaks emerge from cracked rocks

grey green with lichen 

this scene unfolds like the beloved familiar setting of a favorite play

Here in what had been sandy shaded bosque

not too long ago

transformed to neighborhoods 

the new oak begins to leaf out

slender catkins following

a companion will be needed if there are to be acorns 

unless the stirring winds bring pollens 

all the way from the botanical gardens 

that always seem so close

but are hardly close enough to form a grove 

We can give up half the driveway and plant another nearby

just as my father spaded the driveway at home

turning over the clover he had planted in the arid soil

so he could experiment with plantings from other continents 

my favorites were the pair of dogwoods nearest the house

tiny violets spreading beneath them

tendrils of grape vines tangled with themselves in another spot

now that I wander his garden in my mind

I restore the fishpond and rice paper plants replaced with orange trees

jump down the seven stairs to the second lawn

as I did in dreams

preparing to fly 

#NAPOWRIMO

On Filial Love

 We speak of love as unconditional 

caught up in yearnings as in an ocean wave

gliding through it 

riding its smooth face 

face we cannot see 

tossed like debris within it until we rise choking 

hardly breathing

dashed 

energized

humbled by this power to overtake us 

How cruel and casual we can be as to filial love

people who are given to us by the architecture of life

siblings taken for granted or worse 

ignored and despised

for simply being themselves 

unconditional love? 

parents who can’t fail to disappoint 

hovering like taut angels

disappearing into lives of their own

caught up in another wave than ours

our children

never aware how carefully we release them like baby sea turtles to cross the sand to their ocean 

Who among us does not pass through decades

without heart shattering

loss can happen over morning coffee

grinding into a perception that someone is not giving enough

shares too much

cannot find a container for their emotive binges

insists on pouring themselves into you

until your own life is so full of their self absorbed angst it enters you as poison

you declining to quaff the arsenic brew felt as rejection 

abandonment 

that thing they insist they always felt from you 

you who worked at a distant desk 

not present when they cried until their little skins turned purple 

they still try to purge themselves of this heart stomped feeling decades later

your choice your mistake your lack of love your abandonment 

It is said that in the end we are alone

meaning we cross a final threshold releasing any hand we hold

some ends happen long before natural death

at times the hands simply let go

having lost that accepting touch 

time’s tides mercilessly separate us

In my life there are those I have profoundly disappointed

nearly everyone close has felt the blunt edge of my imperfections 

it becomes easier now to forgive them 

their endless writings of my inadequate love

love that has matured into the fine weave of being unconditional 

yet is perceived as clearly

not enough 

whereas it is sadly imperfect 

not necessarily tuned to their same key

having been written on the windows in yesterday’s mist

love letters lingering in the much mended heart

#NAPOWRIMO

April 10

 It was fairy tales that laid out the real world

that golden reflections in the pond

concealed 

monstrous creatures that hovered below the surface 

but listen to the story

within the lake is the lady

in her hand, the sword 

Beneath the earth

spine of the dragon 

sleeping now 

sleeping until human hand grasps sword

Myths reveal the hero’s journey 

also Narcissus by the pond

in love with his reflection 

The bard remembers Ophelia

sister of Laertes 

laying herself in the water until it consumes her

Within that story poison is poured into ears

much as in our world today

If you have read and heard the tales

these few words may conjure 

hoofbeats on powdered dirt

a handful of pomegranate seeds

fairy song in the forest primeval

And possibly the voice of your mother

reading you into slumber

with voices of the ages

#NaPoWriMo

April 9 2022

 After all those years in the rainforest 

discovering there was a carpet of plant weavings under the soil 

inches deep

connecting everything

I thought I understood the secret life of plants 

After the pandemic pause including two  summers in the high desert scrub

juniper and piñon 

twisted amidst thorny cacti 

more than anything the trees called out to me 

Here close to the river there are cottonwoods that glisten

long armed branch of ash and elm 

pistache red as autumn lipstick 

in their season

for me, it became cherry and oak

Montmorency for the pies 

aspen grove by the sidewalk 

surprising purple flowers of desert willow 

I prepared for the trees by reading 

seeing their pictures

I visited them in the arboretums

and still I had no idea 

of the flowers of the oak tree

or even of the tiny tender new leaves of the aspen

My appreciation for spring had to do with the color chartreuse 

unfurling of giant fern fronds

appearance of daffodils above the ground 

swollen streams 

Behind the house a pair of doves

have adopted us

they come around when I am outside

the dog watches them silently

Even in town 

seemingly defined by asphalt and concrete 

we live in the embrace of all living things

#NaPoWriMo

April 8 2022

 Within the archive of the familiar

there are treasures

there was a time when I trusted the world more

maybe you did too 

This image is from then 

the before times 

when even the skies 

were painted with optimism 

I saw myself then

an image captured 

resting in the vault 

my colors had not yet faded

face rounded not yet gaunt

There had been wretchedness before

Ellen’s brother killed in Khe Sahn 

my father, death rolling over him as he lay on the old sofa

savage blows to the heart before I was old enough to vote

Now I can see backwards 

around corners 

see when I believed we could change the world 

see when I believed we could choose better futures 

What remains after all that came before

is this

you and I, we write our own story 

yes, our lives happen around us

there is much beyond our touch

and yet and still

when we choose the words to say what we are

the entire language is spread before us

In the song we sang

words described us lifting our feet up

setting them down hard 

stomping the grapes of wrath into wine

truth marching on

to overcome

that is our one job

our reward, the ineffable natural world

where twice a day the sky is alight

where mighty trees bloom out in cascades of tiny flowers

laughter has no words

hope lives 

love conquers 

peace is finding a way 

#NaPoWriMo

April 7 2022

 The time of happening is here

sun has rediscovered its purpose 

in waking up the fruit trees

prodding vines into looking alive again

stolid stodgy oak has the tiniest leaves 

apple blossoms went from one to many

all in one day

The time of miracles is here

and to think once I thought

those only had happened in times before I was alive 

remembering then

in the newness of being

fairies and elves upon the land

The time of glassy mornings is here

there might be ice fringes

more likely air crisp in the dawn

afternoons nap warm

evenings with winking fireflies 

pink skies 

star drenched nights 

promises intended to be fulfilled 

true spring

#NaPoWriMo

These things that matter

 I saw the corner of a room

in a photograph

distinctly bronze

(one of my most prized colors)

sheets of mica hang by the window 

old heavy dark metal Cuban kind fan

sits on the floor 

There is old glass 

teapots, one Japanese

the other graceful pale antler colored ceramic

Two sculptures

horizontal twigs and vertical metal

illuminated as if by crystal filtered sunlight

Yesterday I wanted to come home with a certain crystal 

a single garnet big as a loquat 

it would have gone onto a tray

in the corner with my pewter goblet

tarot wrapped in blue habotai silk

wand carved from desert willow

juniper scent candle poured into cement cup

These things that matter 

tell a small part of our story

one poem among many

remind us how we are different 

how we are alike 

The only photo I display of a person 

Robert stands in front of a sculpture in Big Sur

slightly larger than person sized of lovers in white marble

he holds his guitar 

built by Lester DeVoe

his elbow matches the curve of a knee

his head follows the line of an elbow

his knee opposite her knee

a step lower

the guitar repeats the lines of heads and shoulders above

in the right corner spikes of agave balance the curves that ascend vertically 

These things that matter 

in their certain ways

the garnet, from when I was a child

bedroom corner table covered with rocks 

there are garnets here now

necklace of faceted stones 

still, not the natural stone with its own facets 

deeply red like a translated heart 

you can hold in your hand

#NaPoWriMo

April 4 2022

 Once we lived on the lip of a volcano

evidence of the living earth

hot sulphur breath

restless stirrings vibrating land beneath our feet

I cannot think of that moving earth

without seeing hula

graceful hands describing liquid rock

emerging in lower Puna

Cracks opened in the sidewalks

hot volcano breath emerged

then fountains of red 

about to make rivers to the sea

It was the ultimate act of becoming

fierce, relentless 

earth making and earth breaking

healed skin hard lava scars thirty feet deep

We lived there ten years

through sixty thousand earthquakes

there were tsunamis

nature showing off any old time

Now we have a quiet house

on a plain street

in the middle of the old city

here we celebrate becoming 

tamely 

with trowels and pecan shells

we watch for the trees to bud

flowers to open

over the quiet earth

There will be wildflowers 

Robert will finish the wall

there will be grapes

lavender will bloom 

We went from hundreds of trees

in the rainforest

to this silent lonely oak 

six aspen out beyond the wall

tender leaves beginning to open

I am ready for nature’s calmer drama

even though I made peace with the trembling earth 

even though I belonged to the lonely island 

and the island to me

as proof look into my heart

listen to the mele 

be the undulating land itself a moment

feet joined with the rhythms of home

#NaPoWriMo

In Memoriam

 In the latter months 

of pandemic year 2020

we gave up expectations 

Fully wrapped in the uncertainty 

we became travelers along empty highways 

it was the land without people

Into the loneliness 

once wild land bearing remnants 

artifacts of travel 

hardy desert weeds grown through concrete where you could have bought gas in another time

We rolled along during The Pause

through the twilight zone between the before and the after

Feeling ourselves near the finish

that time when the pandemic fades into just another piece of history

we mark the moment the official pandemic deaths in this country surpasses one million 

May their spirits find sanctuary 

within the mountain folds

upon the lonely winds

rest within herb steeped shadows

of this our continent

lux aetеrna, luceat eis …

requiem aeternam dona eis domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis

*final words are from Rutter Requiem

On Becoming

 He did not expect to live that long

they said of the hundred year old man

would that age be something 

you plan out

notes on the paper calendar

Age being something that happens 

time flows around you 

a sacred wind sloughing off 

what you are seen to be

wind that bends you into supplication 

Do not be misled

thinking age creeps up

as it envelopes you there is a roar

your skin cannot keep you enclosed

you feel your soul becoming restless

most of all

you become conscious 

there is no undoing of mistakes

As bones once broken howl in rain

those parts that could not heal 

without scars

show up in dreams 

unrequited love notes from your own self

demanding your embrace before the end of all and everything 

#NaPoWriMo

#joinme

Replenish the Earth

 Replenish the earth

Let our language set direction

Neither rubbish nor garbage

remains of tomatoes

shreds of uneaten lettuce 

cobs of corn, fallen leaves

wishing to become fertile soil

Simple to give back to the earth

what we do not eat 

what falls from trees

trees that speak through the compacted traces of what once greened the surround

trees know dirt

Earth feels trussed 

entrapped

bound by asphalt ribbons 

her breathing inhibited with concrete masks

her pores overcoated by too much everything 

Replenish the earth

darken the soil 

get generous with peels 

soggy coffee grounds

wilted daffodils 

Make new dirt! 

#NaPoWriMo

#compost

Front of the House

In the front of our house

a courtyard is forming

what used to be there 

gone 

what used to be there

had been worse than emptiness 

soil covered with a barrier upon which gravel lay

In the front of our house

there is now emerald lawn

Wildflowers have tiny green tops in one corner

Over there, an apple tree spreads arms tipped with buds

Here, the stoic oak has not found spring

Lilacs give birth to green buds and tiny tight promises of flowers and fragrance

In the front of our house 

circles of smooth basalt pebbles 

Quartz and pretty little marbles 

looking like agates 

will be laid in cement for a path 

curving past the fountain to the door

In front of our house

grape vines teeter in their cartons

awaiting arch 

arch in need of heavy footings

Garden of becoming 

within walls 

walls to hold away shards of chaos

chaos created by people

by people not even here

Outside the garden wall here

once mighty Rio Grande

has pulled back 

defined now the narrow riparian ribbons

While inside the garden wall

sand soil shows river was here

here before the chaos 

churning through this desert 

creating green edges to everything 

#NaPoWriMo

National Poetry Writing Month

A poem a day in April