Praise for the Ordinary

Dirt road, Upper Turkeyfoot

People blessed love clouds

lifting their heads

as great armadas

of light and shade

sail above them

there for all to see

as the wind is on the hill

there for all to hear

the trees singing background

for the crow

soloing in blue

with last night's rain

still gleaming on the road

common gifts on a common day

surrounded by ordinariness

and blessed be.

—with lines from Adam Zagajewski's "My Favorite Poets"

Ancient Evening

Expand with a click to see Venus.

    

Out of the woods in the civil twilight,

Leaving the owl to her silent flight

And the pileate to his lament

Amplified by the stillness of the pure early dark

Rising from the frozen ground,

A  pause in the rush of our world,

Climbing the slope of the field in its shadow,

Things of the earth black on the dimming sky

Pierced by the evening's bright planets,

Knowing the peace of our minds in this time

Of the stopped sun, communing with ourselves

When souls have passed over

And wait in the void to be born,

Light a candle for the sun's return.

—Touching upon pre-Celtic Irish myths surrounding the winter solstice.

Solstice

Under the swing of the sun

Each moment is a pause


The night is long

And filled with wonders

Breathe deeply and wait

Aging in the deep blue dark

More Likes

Cabin in nautical twilight

  

I've reached the conclusion

We all see too much of each other,

Boorish in our digital presences,

Barging into each other's lives

When who asked us?


The more time I spend in the woods

Away from my own disappointing species,

The happier I am with the market cashier,

Perhaps my only live interaction

In two weeks, and a stranger.


I'll load the pickup thinking,

What kind and helpful creatures,

These smiling humans, which lasts until I finish

Restocking the cereal and peanut butter

And check my devices. Then humbug.


Thus, I promise myself more cabin time.

I'll order stamps and fill the Meisterstuck.

I'll refine my thoughts, consider the best way to say

Something worth saying, for an audience of one,

make notes, rewrite, on cotton paper, in cursive—


Boomer secret code.

Claims that the Animals Are Not Harmed Proved False

Las Luminarias, the annual ceremony of the purification

of the animals, Avila, Spain. Antonio Zamora photo.

  

I've seen it again

Just before I awoke,

Horses, fire, and night riders,

A vision that has come to represent

The end of our union,

Muscle, hooves, escape

Through the flames and the smoke.


We should have practiced old ways,

Reviving our ritual from the provinces,

Las Luminarias, a celebration of the physical,

A leap over bonfires,

Purification of the animals

On the Feast of Saint Anthony,

Singed, even scarred, but not felled,

As the night I worked late,

And you came home later,

Smelling of horses and wood smoke and distance.

This Thin Place and Time

  

This thin place and time,

These in-between weeks,

Thin as the Celts called it,

Closer than usual to another reality

Where spirits and memories dwell.


You feel it walking the woods

In drifting mists and cold rain on old snow,

Between seasons, between worlds,

Between growth and decay, life and death,

The limbo of early December.


So often our mood matches the natural world,

All day the bare trees touch each other

As I walk this thin place

Of the ghosted, dripping woods.

I see no one, the dead going with me.

Storm Damage

A super cell over Colorado, 2012. Cammie Czuchnicki photo

You imagined a world. I saw it, too,

Both of us fiction in each other's eyes.


Forces of nature, beautiful from a distance,

Love, of course, and no survivors.

Clearing Near Sunset

Much of the light

has been blocked.

Cloud and cold rain

were the day, were the years,

some would say.

Yet see how it clears

close to sunset,

and isn't it heavenly

under the sky,

and hasn't it been?

A few moments' clearing

in the waning hours

is hope enough 

to keep me working

toward that end.