Thread of Freedom
Open now the inner gate to what is forgotten beyond the rim of the too worn world, an ancient image disturbing who would rather sleep and lose the thread of freedom.
Present in the Slough
Off the main river in the back channel behind cottonwood island, dark water and dank air; tracks of raccoon and deer along a muddy bank, quiet from the engines. The slow drift of summer, fetid with the valley wash, still a mystery despite its labor, with rocks as old as time. Something present in the […]
Dressed for Rain
I rest upon the rock like an old bent nail watching her changing face, of eddy line and standing wave, the swirls where tide meets bay birds touch and go forever feeding. Seals appear as if by magic, golden eagle brown and tan with spreading wing takes roost while two bald eagles arc to south […]
Rocky Slope
To know only storm is to miss the morning sea before the rising warmth lifts a breeze; the same with calm if that is your demand for then how will you join the wind in all its glory? The ebb gathers force hour by hour chasing invisible moon across the sky while otters wobble down […]
Renovation
Something had to change the inner structure incomplete; posts are missing, a beam or two. I seem to be leaning, slipping, the architect busy with eraser as so-called memories disappear, the carpenter’s pencil fat but sharpened like a knife. Timbers take the knife like trees took the saw, the forest but a field of corn, […]
Soundless Yes
Here in this room, this morning no machine sound, no gears or clockwork falling into place, just the soundless yes of your hair upon the pillow, your breath soft in pre-dawn light.
Ocean Winds
There’s a wind before first light with cool air through the window. The long arms of ocean reach the valley as people along the river surprise themselves with ancient signs drawn in ink upon their skin, of hidden life below the river, and ocean winds before first light.
Spread with Wings
Where angels gather, windswept rocks and rooted pine and raptors in their solace. There the burning is within, the flame whose wood is light igniting the record of all their choices, fueling the rise into deep blue, burning, letting go. Light and ash becoming seed, spread with wings upon the wind. […]
Light After Rain
The sea is far away, outside the sound of cars, yet in my heart I touch your presence in the quietness without distance, like tide returning, and light after rain.
Aching with Desire
I caught a glimpse of you in shoots of grass and violet flower, the season of rain beginning to thin with glimmers of light through breaking cloud. The moon appears like a deer, telling me you’ve not forgotten, aching with desire for the simple words – I want you. […]
Raise Hope
The cherry trees softly painted against the first blue of spring raise hope within the earth, their secret wish released from the dark fold of winter in a daring flow of pink upon silence.
What Must Go
What must go for this day to be born? Something presses upward from within, grown in the dark and breaking surface, as roots continue down and vision opens to light.
There is Life
Along the racing tideline, in the sounds of the forest and the yearning cry of gull, the world seeks its original Self. In the hours after midnight an eloquent umber moon rises, casting Her image upon the sea with no concern for witness. There is ignorance, there is cruelty but above all there is life, […]
Easter 2012
Blue gray water in spring light, awakened by the wind on a gentle southerly course; waves marching gently in a children’s parade without the fury of winter. I am the settled stone, the coastal trees reaching down and the gulls aloft in a soft breeze, the landscape flooding me like the morning tide with the […]
Presence
Looking into the old wood something wants to fall away, like a dead branch in the wind, to let what is new fill the part of me spreading in rings of sun and aging season. Rising from the unseen clean and vertical, with only presence to speak in the green and trembling forest.