Rivers When is a creek a river and when is a river a creek? I imagine an engineer could point to it having to do with water, volume, and time of year. In my world there was always a creek or a river, to fish in, to swim in, to float on. When I was seven my dad took me fishing, just he and I. I was in a state of high alert as I cast a bobbin upstream. I could smell the ripe detritus of life cycles in that water. And dirt, it smelled like dirt. That smell imprinted on my memory so that many fertile waters would feel like home. On the surface, a graceful black snake swam through rotting leaves- dragonflies danced with small insects in the shadow of a cottonwood I waited quietly and watched. From the bottom of the river, A mossy green catfish, whiskers waving, breached the surface and took the bait flipping and trying to run away with the worm. My first catch. Filleted and fried and it tasted like mud and earth. Now the river was in my belly.

Lightening

I want to explore the world,
My body filled with lightning,
sizzling and luminous.
Under a blanket of stars.

The Five Horsemen

The Five Horsemen arrive
every morning at sunrise...

Who
What
When
Where
How...

Will this day go, start, middle, end, schedule.
The currency of the day already becoming
Precious barter
To be spent.

These fucking horsemen. They steal from me.

I have lived the days of my life,
searching for what they demand.
Where each day was a deposit or
productive withdrawal of funds.

Some days I simply ignore them,
because the pounding of their hooves
Is no longer so demanding.
They don't run through my yard like they
used to.

Message Received

Always to be awakened, I awake and begin the search.
The light level of morning spreads over my cuddled nest
of cotton and fur.
An open window beckons
to trails to be traveled and those which
close to home will be the way to stay close.

The quiet reverie is broken by the
ding ding of message received.

Two Haiku

Fat ripe green caterpillar
Arch, expand, squeeze across stones.
The road fell apart. 

When fluffy seed puffs
Toss and spin white stars overhead
The sky blue is thick.

In Gratitude to a Rock at Machu Picchu

There are times when there are
other languages to discover.

In conversation at the top of the world,
I have selected you, unpolished quarry rock,

to converse with, touching spine and bone
on your slanted outlook of granite.

We speak of mist and shadows.
Purple orchids, Pachacuti.
Exploding Stars.

Life and death, life and death.

A llama has defecated nearby,
drawing large beetles.
An ant makes a trail like a tiny mountain climber.

In deference to solid advice.

What happens in airports

Philadelphia 

She saw me at a table tapping at my laptop. 
I looked up and saw an airport ID on her large bosom.

She said you look like a writer. 

Can you help me write a letter for my church? 

She wears shiny gold dresses on Sunday she says.

She gives roses to pregnant girls on marble stoops.

She says to them, join me in the house of the Lord,

She wants to help her church people fly.

The Feeling of Scissors Cutting Away

There was never a scream when you died,
only the sound of inhalation and exhalation.

Scissors can make an itty bitty cry
at the axis of of two blades.

Long cuts are slow and steady.
Little snips are quick breath around curves.

What has been cut away is considered negative,
disqualified and discarded.

Intentionally, remaining cloth can be
draped and darted into something new.

A beating presser foot
pumps matching thread into matched seams.

Let no one split apart what God has
joined together.

It seems I have lost the ability to believe this,
Because my careful wedding dress is gone.


( My mother sewed my wedding dress and my sister's wedding dress. A few years ago, I took the wedding dress out of the plastic and a pink foam hanger had permanently ruined it. I secretly put it in a dumpster. This poem is the poem of grief).

Oscar Shorts

I asked the man next to me what happened on Friday night. In a beer laced voice, he said:

“Dramatic shorts, you missed the whole thing. Lots of Syrians crying. It was excellent.”

Rabbit: The Sharpness of Shadows

Rabbit: The Sharpness of Shadows: The Sharpness of Shadows A Kansan by birth, and somewhat related to everyone in the cemetery,  she was trained initially in a delib...

The Sharpness of Shadows

The Sharpness of Shadows

A Kansan by birth, and somewhat related to everyone in the cemetery, 

she was trained by a flat and vast landscape

instilling a pronounced feeling of smallness

in the magnitude of her natural surroundings. 

She associated this large and uncluttered space

with a simple and unadorned life. 

Her people were grounded by good soil,

but feathery clouds filled her head.

Searching for novelty, intoxicated with color,

she left, striking out beyond the 

prevailing opinion that that one should always

stay where they are.

As she remembers her restless past,

Each scene selectively animated

with more softness, more reverence, 

ignoring the sharpness of shadows.

Warm air bends the light

until it meets the eye of someone standing in the road.

The Two

When I opened my eyes this morning, you were in a chair watching me, and I asked, “ How did you get in?” 

You said “The side door." Of course, Detective,

thats how you came into my life, the door I hadn’t locked. 

And you were here, and so was he, in the living room, meeting for the first time. You both knew of each other. Awkward. But you were getting along.

Of course, I knew you would. So many things similar, so much in common.

I left to do business in a bleached white hotel, while both of you waited at home for me to return.  Both of you waited. Because I run off like that to strange places, my priorities in selfish containers. 

I leaned into him on one side, and held your hand on the other. My ring finger could feel where the promise used to be. 

Then your seat was suddenly empty. I thought maybe I should try to text you.

A finely transparent feather was found on my front porch yesterday. 

Light came through it as I held it up to the blue sky by it’s quill. 

And I cry a little, now that I am fully awake. 

The Nature of Horses

The Nature of Horses

they live in

          fractious   behavior

when he paws the ground,

          she responds in kind

although he may be-

          well suited for a wide range of uses

                    

with obvious stallion physique,

                teasing, wild play, posturing,

it is somewhat amazing

               (and i could be mistaken)

these tendencies toward

                breeding

will eventually with age and time

                naturally

calm them as they graze   

                under a night sky

The Death of Roscoe

I look at him

He looks at me

I cry.

By the refrigerator

I watch him

He waits

He sits by me. 

He lies on me

His heart has a tiny beat

His tail is is tapping

I touch his bumpy spine

I say I love you

His eyes squint a little

He sleeps

He staggers a little

I look at him

He looks at me

I cry. 

Last Fall

Geese move in and out of formation in shimmering ribbon

Tied and crossed over, wrapping the sky.

Yes, I asked to be cleansed of judgment day

and what binds me now is loosened in the north pointing arrow

my hardest heart lifted and the sun comes through the gray clouds.

Dear God I asked them all the family stories, and see

that this could be lifted out by the roots.

Bare

There's a deer pounding down the snow with hooves, 

and my gosh, sometimes you just gotta lie down,

bend, tuck, collapse into the bare white bed of winter. 

Cinderella's New Year

My mind thought with my eyes,
it might be better for me this morning.

I barefooted around the kitchen,
opening and closing drawers
full of Knives, Forks, and Spoons.

How truly alone is it to wish for a prince.

Counter crumbs are for small mice.
Dry roses curtsy in a vase.
Stale champagne is poured down the sink.

The day has too much heaviness to be
the start of a new year.

The little cocktail

August says here is the way,

take small portions of sweetness

like the little bees on the Black Eyed Susan.

A hummingbird moth hung in midair 

flicks at high speed to the next

tiny dip of summer nectar.

Wands of wavy Buddleia blossom

are suckled by the upside down

butterfly with the blue eyes. 

Ripe color is greedy.

A yellow ribbon snake wraps

the black iron of the garden gate. 

Dear one, you thought you were missing it, the fleeting

moments of brightness, each moment 

tallied together as a summer. 

August says, here is the way,

take small portions of sweetness,

sip the little cocktail while you can. 

The 4th of July

Poetry takes space and well I

have so little of that.

It’s the 4th of July and I’m

considering freedom.

And the box I live in and 

the box I will leave in.

God’s eye above must

see me swaddled in

Striped sheets, soft

fur and purr sunrise.

Wonder what

I will do with my free will today. 

Two Landscapes

East

On evening’s walk, the path is thick with dripping honeysuckle. It has just rained and my lungs are bellows for damp fragrance, in and out, in and out.  Leaves brush close, layers of light and dark shadow green rise up from foot level to treetops. What was flat landscape in winter is now dimensional…moving shaded shapes where small insects hide. Hard berries will be soft and warm soon, ripening on thorny branches.

West

It is an experience of sweet longing and vast space. Wild iris bloom in clumps near a rushing stream. The  horse steps into the water and goes knee deep into the wild current. There is a mucking mud sound as a hoof pulls up onto solid ground. What cannot be contained is green grass pasture stretching low and wide to the mountains. Here, there are few boundaries, few fences, and prairie range is filled with soft air. 

Always present is the keeping blue sky.