Gifts to the Solstice
Snow covers the mountains with ice down to the valley floor. Rivers run fast but the banks are frozen, icicles hang from the broken trees. How deep will cold set into the soft earth? How pliable will we be under winter’s cover? The harsh words of troubled hearts fall like freezing rain yet in the […]
What Trembles the Mountain
Memories of the animals fade with the addiction to more. The season asks for repentance but the hymns of division and adulation of things defeat going down and in. I shape a cave in the rock of my mind, surround it with silence and let the water of renewal gather under black lava. I chant […]
Choose Each Day
I won’t be nourished by the glittering parade of the soon-to-be-forgotten. Rivers run white in the first storms of November, mountains ring with the sound of water rushing to the sea. Let me go down with leaves, choose the submersion of rock in the autumn flood. Let me rise in darkness, be fed by morning […]
Wheel of Time
Looking to the east nothing takes shape in the grey sky, light slowly rising on the undefined. Before the made there is the void, the emptiness of what may be, the womb of earth awaiting seed for the days ahead. We rest without knowing while the wheel of time slowly turns our fate dark bruised […]
Smiling at the Beast
What coils out from within, dark and inscrutable, with no regard for all we’ve made, how we reach to each other in the night. One of the old gods, cruel and unyielding, the arm of the destroyer lifted against our tenderest mercy. Once the void is opened, the venom released, there’s no going backward, no […]
Empty Cup
Bordering the sea mountains fold in rounded loaves to lay their feet in the great stone bowl. As the sea empties with the pull of the tide my thoughts follow the receding water, freeing up the deadwood to sip upon the empty cup. Ten thousand years pass; salt air etches the stone, grass rises with […]
Lost Child
Giving way to quiet, a rolling wave brushes the broad earth with the breath of stillness, soothing the hurts of thought and worry, the dark plains of loss and want, guiding gently the lost child we once knew as peace.
Visiting the Tabernacle
Darkness covers the city though street lights push against the unwelcome; soon the turning east will open to the sun. For now the night blanket covers the injuries poured upon the earth, sheltering the wounded from the stark witness of day. Before we rush to the light, smothering awareness with our hive of activity, let […]
Welcome the Unfinished
The pause between night and day suffers the wind, the rain, the dark uncertainty, to welcome the unfinished with the grace of a bird. Each day I go to this altar emptying the night bucket after bucket, until I’ve space enough for the morning.
Blessing Basket
I walk beneath the island trees rekindling lost fire, awakening to her presence. Cool air from the north flows across the broad sea lifting white caps on billowing waves. She’s coming to greet me with her blessing basket. How can I refuse?
Dropping the Mask
I may be in a trance; wind cuts down from the north, sea rolls in driven waves, the tide ebbing south. Dark grey sky above, hints of blue and gold where the rising sun lights behind the clouds. I wandered in my dreams between worlds not understood yet this morning the beauty of your presence […]
Suffer the Night
The cauldron comes to boil laden with wounded flesh and broken bones. Witches mind the iron kettle, while grim ogres without repentance circle the fire with hungry eyes. What was done to the least of these rises in the lurid stew, while the air fills with the dark smoke of what might have been. Encamped […]
Guess Who Stopped By
Death came by, rang the doorbell, shot me a text. No one home I wanted to say but if I said it, well, someone’s home. He waited around, smoked a cigarette, checked his iPhone with the next-to-go app. He hollered up, I know you’re there, let’s get a coffee. What’s with the ignoring? I wouldn’t […]
Morning Circle
In first light, moist air before day’s heat, the fresh smell of innocence. Birds call in the distance, geese stir and feed; otter slowly curves to dive in a shining C as Earth readies for the next strain of the machine. Trees quiet, sun upon the sea breathed in and returned, as we lend ourselves […]
Simple Stories
Simple stories rise from the grist of water washed gravel, desire revealed shining and desperate. We’ve loved, then not, then loved again. Nothing complex but the heartache, searching for what we lost along the rock strewn shore while the river carries on. Song in the searching, melody in the water, simple stories told and retold […]