On the Wire
No way out of fine balance on the long thin wire between the towers of then and now, of what has been and what must be. Carrying the weight of seventy one years I can’t look down like once I did, can’t let my mind wander. Every step precise, each movement of arm and leg […]
Fed to the Earth
The world awakes to headlights, the sound of birds and coffee makers. In the dimly lit east Venus holds her place as the night sky fades. I look from my window through the bare branches of the plum tree. Just one of the heralds, I call in the morning, cranky with pain and dull of […]
Son of the Morning
Son of the Morning thought Custer at the Bighorn, ambition like his hair a trap of fool’s gold. Better to become silence beside the roaring river where pride turns to soil and the old ways still hold.
Spring Cleaning
Creeks are grey with snow melt, the forest floor wet with rain. Spring clears the winter tangle, brush and debris carried away to rivers already full and rushing to the sea. I’ve gathered deadwood, the wasted energy that needs to pass. Let me wash with rivers, pristine once more like a deep vaulted canyon. Below […]
Ceremony of Spring
The ceremony of spring swells in winter darkness, blades of grass parting wet ground on the altar of beginnings. Incantation and incense formed by the morning braid like smoke, and lift into the four winds, signal for the earth to rise and awake.
Ancient Wheel
Winter’s gift returns to the valley, rain soaked ground drinking deep, evergreens lifted to gray skies. Mountains gather early snow, rivers their wet season run. With the sun far south daylight is dim yet under the soft hues and blanket of rain an embryo of new life forms in earth’s darkness, the gift of life […]
Rushes to the Morning
Dawn comes to the valley, houses lit with early risers, garbage trucks roaring to a stop. Headlights carve the remaining dark, white edged clouds outline the sky. Black winged birds fly east while out beyond the mountains sun breaks the horizon, warming the high desert and a ripple of peaks on the great divide. Wolf, […]
Bird Song
Birds return to the valley crossing the sky, filling the trees. The winter storm has passed and though the rain continues something has changed. The slowly swelling branches of the plum trees stretch out, drinking in the cool air as the earth awakens to bird song. […]
Living in the City
Hard cobblestone streets and sidewalks with blood in the cracks. Old buildings with the cries of mothers and children, the laughter of immigrants. It was the only world we knew and though rivers ran below the palisades, the earth had forgotten us, and we were left to fight it out beneath the streetlights. Somewhere above […]
Only This Life
I’ve shaped wood into the soft curve of tapered molding and myself into a rough hewn beam to support the weight of generations. Resting on the columns of all who went before I hold up the roof for those coming. Look into the well of life, the mirror of your heart. There is only this […]
When You Find Me
Blessings come slowly like soft light in early morning or the dimming skies of nightfall. Prayers are heard and answers given though they rise in their own time like the crocuses in spring. I wait in the earth, the long winter dark my old friend. Extend your faith to the deepest roots and when you […]
Between Dreams
Let it be dark, this cave of contemplation. No light need enter, no warmth, as winds howl with the distant noise of breaking ice and cold shot trees. Having given up the sun and taken to the cavern, I say what stone says, the weight I’ve carried laid down in darkness. I breathe slowly between […]
Not Crazy Enough
(for William Stafford) Birds below the winter sky, their wings etched in black against the thick gray blanket. In leafless months they’re visible in rooks and nesting branches as they come and go in the wet morning. Their patterns marked above the crowded street, where cars move in straight lines, the birds cover and cross […]
Wearing the Darkness
In the last days of December low clouds move slowly through shades of grey, the soft beauty of a northwest morning after days of rain. Earth wet and breathing, evergreens stretch their roots as birds circle in the cold air. I’m glad to sit by the fire, wearing the darkness like an old hooded sweatshirt, […]
Hollow Reeds
Clear night with dry cold and east wind, change coming in quiet steps as last leaves fall, bare branches stir. Fullness passed we may empty with the earth, hollow reeds for winter music.