Our Longing Eyes
Bread and wine, a crown of thorns, lies of judgement and lonely walk. To carry a cross and know betrayal the mortal road, yet the cherry tree blossoms and throughout the earth a risen life in green and gold bathes our longing eyes with the beauty once again of morning.
Bridging the Distance
Wet with spring rain silence rises into the isolation. Outer noise quiets the sound of songbirds. The few friendly faces smile as we pass, the separation connecting us, the hardship common ground. We find ourselves in this silence, who we are and who we might yet be bridging the distance until again there is joy. […]
Forgotten Symphony
The illness showed in many symptoms but the cause lied layers deep, a rejection hard as stone, entangled as a spider’s web. When the keeper lost balance the planet leaned, continents shifted and the perfect orbit unwound. The age of the predator rose with a blood red moon and the time of loneliness began. Off […]
Plum Tree Sparrow
There is a sparrow on a branch of the plum tree, just one of the songbirds left in this city of crows. She sings with desire for the light that rises, she sings for the day and the warmth to come, her tuft of feathers and russet crown full with the beauty of invisible touch. […]
Soul at Rest
Lay down like the snow wet and peaceful in this wintry March storm, your heart calm as the white blanket dusting early spring flowers. The urge to upset roils like a river, hollows us for a harvest we rarely understand. Resist that threshing with the power of silence; let your soul come to rest with […]
After a Night of Rain
After a night of rain with clouds so dense the moon barely shown, a gray morning of dim light and showers. Evergreens stretch their limbs, birds circle in the mist, and quietly the plum tree flowers.
Unfasten the Lock
I see your struggle, the weight etched on your face as you bear up under the gravity known only to you. The world pulls down while you strive to gain altitude, clawing at the trap set on the day you were born. Don’t bother with confession, just reach down to the glint of metal at […]
Something Like Praise
With first light the soul of the earth rises, reaching through evergreen and shy herds of deer, silver cords of river fish and human hearts no longer sleeping. Quietly we come, something like praise a lilt in our voices, gathering the stones of what we’ve forgotten in a cairn of remembrance, to mark the day […]
Shedding the Old Cloak
The plum trees signal leave the cave, their delicate pink buds brave enough to face the last winds of winter. From the wet ground new life slowly rises, the comfort below shed like an old cloak for what waits unseen in the colors of spring. […]
Across the Alvord
We scurry around staying busy while winter passes over the valley and caps the mountains. Warm air invites crows to mass beside the river, street people to flourish in makeshift tents. The rain lets up and no one complains except a few old-timers, who remember snow and the way of the Columbia. They talk of […]
Winter Rest
The weight of winter blankets the mountains, burying dark caverns and rivers beneath blue ice. The silence of snow while the giant sleeps, the only sound the crack of a breaking branch. Down in the valley coils of wood smoke, the restless cars and persistent rain. The Earth weaves her spell as the fat bear […]
Grandmother’s Blanket
Crow came by bringing news of the forest, of salmon asleep in branch water, beaver at work in the creek flows and rooted beneath the ancient trees the peace of the earth gathered in pools still and deep beyond measure. Beside the old well grandmother spreads her blanket, her shells and stones laid out in […]
Soft Snoring Animal
Gray sweeping clouds pass over the rain soaked land, carrying ocean’s gift to the high mountains. Winter takes hold these long nights while bear sleeps in his cave. We carry on above ground, displaying our flags and assured opinions as if what seems solid will not pass in time’s river or dissolve in the great […]
Lord of the Dance
Big drop rain and gray skies settle over the land, cold air and wet ground bringing rest to the earth in the deep sleep of winter. Guides inform me during blanket weather in the shape of crows and bare branch trees, telling a story older than time. Bear dreams in his cave, salmon come to […]
Epiphany
Out of the world’s confusion like a thorn filled briar, we reach out to the heavens our playthings set aside for body, mind and heart to follow the stars. We travel by night under deep space shining, gaining our bearings for the direction we take to find our way forward to the birthplace of innocence, […]