Free Will

there it was in my baby book
the irrefutable proof and truth
that I was cleaved in two
twinned at birth.

identical me babies
one in mother's arms
one in father's arms
left and right, right and left
and I already knew

the child in the photo
had halves parted by mystery
male female
yin yang
brave and fearful

it wouldn't be so easy
holding hands with myself
the mirror images of love
always longing to be joined.

Sacred Sunday

Sunday crows called me out
while I was cleaning, swiping, wiping.
Noisy birds cracked air and sky,
my playmates from the other side
cackled a morning warning
"This is not the time for so much doing."

My cat knows this.
Listening to rain is our job.

Could I?

Could I?

Look up at the sky

and breathe in blue

where I would lie?

Could I?

fade to pony grey,

give up the hair dye

(and no one ask why?)

Could I?

paint the day away,

hurl a rock at a star,

just to see how far?

Could I?

make do with less,

sit under a cottonwood

and call that success?

Rabbit: Ode to a georgia o'keefe tree

Rabbit: Ode to a georgia o'keefe tree: To know a tree best, lean your bones and skin against the sleek round firmness of burnished charcoal bark. Touch limbs that ...

Ode to a georgia o'keefe tree

To know a tree best,

lean your bones and skin

against the sleek round firmness

of burnished charcoal bark.

Touch limbs that reach sky.

Twined twins grow from center cleft

sprouting green sisters and cousins

leaflet babies birthed by wood. 

See the soft animals who

make their hidden home here,

crawling over nubs, chattering in leaves leaving

small bits of fur and feather. 

Utah Morning

Slant rock faces of sandstone kings

become gilded by morning light. 

Silhouettes against blue sky

clothed in robes of dusty ochre 

tucking shadows in crevice pockets. 

The day whispers-

here's a secret, here's a mystery

held within the tiniest pebble

the drop of rain, the swallow's nest

the footprint, the lizard, the raven.

Here's a place where earth creaked,

heaved, squeezed, folded, molded

layer upon layer of mineral sand

varnished smooth by wind fingers

in sculpture tethering a fragile tree.

Here's a place where river glitters. 

Sun stars crown waves

The ethereal entourage dances downstream

where flickery sparks flash, fade and

mercurial water kisses timeless stone.

The Wild Hairdresser

my eyes walk the circles

of her curved bark bumps.

fibrous tree breasts nippled

where small branch babies

once suckled heartwood.

mother, sister strong survivor

long roots reach deep dirt

ringed torso reaches skyward

immoveable but her crown

lifted, blown, rinsed, dried.

winds brush and caress

green leaves and straw nests.

the wild hairdresser is tireless

flinging a red bow to the sky

where it opens wings and flies.

Six Oh Birthday

No, sky I don't need to write my name across your blue today. This day is filled with run and play.

Since the start I was left right silly smart. Boy girl yin yang light dark art. Strong weak messy sweet. Tender hard awake asleep. Good bad puzzle complete.

Yes, Mrs. Applegate, I'm the girl who colored pink and red,
and I'd do it again in a beat,
because broken rules and beauty
are truly very sweet.

The Childless Shoemaker

It would make all of you happy

To know of my interest and fascination

With this German shoemaker,
Great Uncle Henry of Rising Sun, Indiana. 

Me, being the childless descendent

younger brother Daniel
and wife Viola. 

Great Grandfather Daniel valued movement over comfort

Leaving his nest in 1878 with yearning.
Go west young man with a woman who will follow. 

Uncle Henry and Aunt Meg

They stay square with an iron fence.

House full of Victorian fancies,

books, music, lace and roses.

A flat photo traps them in time,

Flowered living room and a gramophone.

Meg in a silk skirt balances a book
While Henry looks on.

The distance widens and separates. 

Daniel and Viola, now live in a fenceless world.
Dust, snakes, and wide open spaces.
Signed with signatures of wagon wheels.

The dapper shoemaker and the farmer with muddy boots
never see each other again.

Daniel and Viola build their Kansas farmhouse
With sunrises at the peak,
painted in pinks, blues, and yellows.

Glory to God they said. Rising Sun.

The Dad Series

Blue Horizon

It was a fly over, a crow’s view from a small plane.

A hot still moment of summer captured

with so much LIFE in a flat photo.

The landscape down there

means much to your daughter.

Our Farm, Our Farm...

Cattle are sprinkled everywhere.

Dad, are you there somewhere? In your favorite chair?

On your tractor? Out on the distant horizon?

I would fall face first from the Kansas sky

if I could find you now.

The Work Shirt

The day after you died,

Mom burned all your boots and overalls with the old tin cans.

She said she'd been waiting for years to do that.

I ask for of your blue work shirt from the closet.

It smelled like manure, and Mom hated farm smells.

The chambray is in my closet now.

With each inhale, the fragrance fades.

Mark of the Beast

Your weathered hands now quietly crossed.

The funeral director asks if there was an accident,
Because the curve of your spine is awkward and bent,

And your forehead is creased
With the mark of a beast.

There was the horse who pinned you in the railroad track,
the tire you changed when your heart said attack,
the day your forehead smacked the Chevy glass,
and a then steer literally kicked your ass.

No sir, we don't know why he won't lie flat.

Corral #5

The chocolate lab was named Obama.
The far sections were North and South Iran.
There was a tractor named Suck Egg.
Everything in your world named with a wink.

Articles came with notes on yellow lined paper
Concerns with commentary cut from headlines.
Mad cows, Washington, casinos on Boot Hill
All signed, love Dad, corral #5.

Kid, the message is you can drink and gamble your way to success.
Kid, got a little break here from corn harvest.
Kid, the USDA man told me airport security is not good.
Kid, we seem to have strong country, I think.

Beloved Babies

Rwanda was a slaughterhouse.

Woke up this morning thinking 

About that blood soaked school

Of death and torture

Graduating class, April 1994.

Anitha tells of her cousin,

Delicate heel sliced with machete.

She falls, no place to hide.

Tall tree lasts a week, 

Chopped down piece by piece.

Turn your head now,

“Don’t tell me more!”

In the land of safety, these things don't happen.

In the land of plenty, this is not our human experience.

Only savages do that.

Flash forward July 2012.

Bloody theater Aurora, Colorado.

Orange headed clown with gun and grin,

Once known as Beloved Baby, soft and pink,

Now known in the world of darker names. 

From outside in

We blame object-

Gun, Parent, Media, Government.

We still can't see inside

The cavern where it boils. 

The heart of darkness is not a place

With borders and directions.

No geography really.

That map walks around on two legs.

Reflection

She was a 16 year old girl

in the farmhouse bathroom.
Her plowing finished for the day. 

The 3 step process is complete. 
Shampoo, rinse, condition
to dilute the smell of farm animals. 

Later, a boy buried his face in that thick mane.

Now, years later
in that same bathroom
she sees the ghost of the girl
in silvery glass

She marvels at space, place and time passing.
She has finally met her self coming and going.
In the house of mirrors. 

On the Bone

Left side is weaker, can't hold as much

Right side is strong with muscle

And determined to solve and support

Right shoulder immobile

From carrying burdens
and being the cushion during 
night dreams and adventures. 

Left hand has a hard callous 

Just below the wedding ring

Softer now as years go by

Piece of plow steel got a win

against skin and bone
now a bump like a white marble
remembers that right leg. 

Left and right.
Both sides listen now. 

The Color of Storm

Purple soaked in black

intense little pansies flutter dark
in bright sunlight 

Iris flail, splay and wilt

indigo midnight dripping

inky stain down the vase.

No flat man made shade, crayon, paint, or dye

can ever come close to your intensity.

When I realized you were Mystery,
When I realized you were a longing

I found you in the night sky cuddling a full moon.

I found you in the fallen crow feather.

I  opened  with deep longing

layered with slight sadness.

When I am old, bring me blackberries from the woods.

I will smash them between my fingers

staining my skin the color of storm.

. 

A Hurricane and a Snake

Sandy was coming. Witch from the South.

I watched the vortex on the television

As her center passed over my house.

That round and round and upside down

shifted energy.

The night of the storm and rain

a small snake curled in the basement

hiding in a rolled rug. 

Sandy's circles of wind whirled and swirled

commanding spirits of the air. 

I was headed east and she sent me west

Wizard of Oz style.

Can a whirlwind carry God's voice?

Within minutes from the sky

Came a new direction and message.

Drive, meet me there at that sweet spot.

Five women brought to the Ohio river

by reasons we're not believing.

Walk with the ancestors, harps playing

Strange events, unknown, unexplained

call forth amazing grace.

Maybe this was how the world was made

from a point of chaos stirred and rotated

in a master plan not visible to us

although we had a glimpse.

Dear Chickie

I open a can 

of chicken broth to complete

chicken supreme casserole

1 cup is all that's needed

and the can is half full

(or half empty)

dear chickie,

we put your life force in a can

and I casually pour

what is left

of your essence

down my sink

slightly sick at the thought

that I waste your gift. 

grandma

would have broke your neck. 

used your death water

used your neck, heart and liver

with a prayer. 

Skip Rope

Doors, ladders, steps, thresholds

I’m climbing crooked steps in these dreams
Or a ladder
Crawling up and clinging to the railing
There’s an opening, a space at the top
Where I have to reach and pull myself up
One leg hooked over a newel post
Like a little girl on the playground trapeze

I do go there, clinging in that space
So not to fall in the air

Doors, ladders, steps, threshold
The structure of openings in dreams and life

Jennifer asks me, what is the threshold?
It’s a line, a division
A stepping through place

A climb into the skyA point of entry and exit 
Depending on which direction I’m headed.
Between my house on solid ground
And crossing over 
To the liquid unknown

And I’ve been there 
And I know I can’t force it
Just step into the water

and trust
So I do a dance on the threshold
Like skipping rope

Watching for the opening

And the courage

To let go

Baby Book Says

Baby Book says:
Identification
Hand or footprints
Paste copy of prints here.

Tricky word, this Identification.
So this is how it starts
Little feet, little hands.
A piece of fine brown hair.

When I learned to say I
 It was like learning staccato. I, I, I.
No longer just toes and fingers
Now I want. I want. I want.

When I knew I had a name
It was like learning a bird call.
Other birds would shout it out
A million times a year.

The Night Sounds

I hear you keening in the woods,
two nights, three nights,
plaintive and primal. 

My bed is lit by the light of a laptop.
Your bed is lit by the moon. 

Between us is board and glass
once part of your trees and rock. 
Landscape with locks and windows. 

You are wildness, electric.

I shut my eyes and let your wail enter.
Sound penetrates everything
down to the core. 

The Lament Series

Cold French Fry

Do it all.
Be it all.
Just asking, does it have to be like this?
There's a cold french fry under the seat of my car.
I'm living the American Way.

Not at Home

I keep my phone on because I am afraid I'll miss you
I don't know you but you might need me

I can be reached on numbers,emails, twitters

I'm in a virtual world but never at home.

Doing

Can't Breath

My oxygen is low

Smothered by the blanket

Of

Doing

It covers me like

Spilled Ink

Runny darkness spreading to my edges

Covering my essence

Stealing my light

Dirty Thief

Wants more more more.

Continuum

I step on family graves with the wonder of what lies under,

tracing my finger around the curve of names carved in oh so

solid granite and earth that seems to hold everything below,

static and dense in darkness, but standing here is breath and air. 

Later along the river in strange formations,

water music had pounded gray rocks crossed with white veins

into bowls and cups brimming with crushed shells.

Small remnants of what seems to hold everything above

in some calcium offering of continuum, here, there, now, gone. 

Last night there were bones spread across dark earth,

smooth femurs and clavicles illuminating the landscape,

buried white gardens made visible in this one dream
full of radiance from bright stone in black sky.

As I curl up in a half moon with head on elbow 

I feel my oh so temporary self in skin, muscle, bone

beating heart, ancient bloodline pulsing as
soft feathers touch me lightly. 

One Good Tomato

It's sleepy cat belly summer
rolled over for a tickle
with a secret hum hymn.

Love locust chorus
chants high low together
singing Om, Om, home.

July sunshine ripeness
orangey limey lemon
juicy fully female heaven

Fireflies rise to meet sky
cousin star brights high
lie waiting deep dusk space.

This is the time of less is more
and one good tomato
can make your day.

July 2010.

first responder

more to respond to when I want less in midlife middle

in primal Pavlov
the fire drill rings
I come running
with heat on my back
I can do it, only me, just me
pay the bills, save the world
knit you a sweater and do it better.

a breeze will fan the flames or cool the coals

air

I tell anyone who will listen
"I want sky!"

A child just today

I named by new bike Blue Hoo, like Woo Hoo!
In spite of prudent self I took her for a ride in the dark woods.

Through the trees she's a smooth ride into the deep twilight
into the mystery

Blue Hoo.

This is the midlife feel, risky, lungs filled
and in the dark woods and shadows I find
myself.

Exhilaration, no sounds but breath and bike
moon on the right, then on the left
peaking and dancing on the edge of sight.

Artemis pedals on in the night. 

small words

poetry seems pure
it doesn't want much
like songs or novels
or big speeches

it doesn't want millions and minions
modestly and honestly
it doesn't need a chair to stand on
or a loud voice

it just wants to be loved
for small words

rabbit

i woke up at 4 am
missing art
missing art
my rabbit foot is tangled in a snare
run rabbit run
freedom is just inches away
for beauty
for beauty
if i could just get loose