Muted

This is the difficult time, the time when you'd call.

We'd talk about how the sky looked at sunrise

The pattern of the drapes you ordered, now discontinued

What the dog did,

The small things that laid in a line make a life.

The snow today fell as crystal lace wheels

And that's how it lies on the fallen field still,

But there is nothing to say.

The Good Day

Driving alone as slowly as the rain

running in the ruts, i locked in my hubs

and turned up a farm road

climbing the mountain -- this kind of country

lifts my spirits, folks living on the land

as they have for eight generations,

proud, capable, and self-reliant -- up i went

because a fire was in my head

vanishing into low clouds, in no hurry

to come down, isolated, beyond reach.

High on the ridge no one knew

the cold rain was falling on me,

 the river grinding through the valley

out of sight, a fine place to spend the future,

all of it, but i came down to consider why not.

—with a line by Yeats

Wanting More or Less

Half light suits me these December days

In the woods at daybreak

To hear what's left recede,

The step of a deer in hiding,

The alarm of a sentinel crow

Taking flight in the glare above me

As the cold crawls down dumb trunks

Into the wrong depth of snow.

Heart Failure

So many of us

Striving for style

Yet so much the same

So fine an edge

Between me and you

It incises the heart

Opens the purple chambers

Clenching to make a difference

And failing.

Notes from the Stream

click to enlarge

Southwest evening slope

Body ruled by laws of place

Mind takes flight.

Staying

Under the old apple tree,

The orchard's last survivor,

Snow falls on the graves of the dogs

That never left. Here one day i would

Join them if the state allowed it,

Near the top of the hill,

Looking out across the wooded valley,

What wonders would reach us on the prevailing wind,

Loyalty always praised, sometimes fatal?

Care

The least of care

brought the stick

to bloom.


Don't mourn the

colder wind and

weaker sun

For in us there is

a burning lamp.

Near the End of the Year of the Snake

In the year the monarchs were late and few

The garter snakes awoke four months early

While the people were sleeping.

Long Dark

Shortest day

another shortest day

the sun so slow to rise

so low above the hill

and then the night

again a longest night

so many shortest days

so many longest nights

someone tell me

this is a beginning

someone tell me how.

Purpose

Left open the doors

to hear the flutter of the flame

and the scramble of Rosie chasing chickadees

running out and back

huffing with the joy of purpose

as i read poetic theory

scrawling a weak phrase or two

in a failed attempt at connecting

the inner and the outer worlds

chasing chickadees

fire aflutter

doors open.