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.

Six One

Notes to Self

Don't spend July
Spine curled and crooked
Like the internet is some sweet fruit
Equal to wild blackberries.

Today is my birthday
Mom says the day I arrived
Was so hot in Kansas
She thought she would die.

That makes sense
Born from the hot oven
Heat lives on my back
Like coals ready to ignite.

Cool me off, Slow me down.
Wrap me in soft breezes,
Dress me in fall leaves,
Please, give me ice cream.

Maya

(Written in 2012 after seeing May Angelou speak)


You said last night 
with your trombone voice
that you write poetry for yourself
when things aren't going right

And your six year silence
made you a better listener 
and a lover of words

I love words too
And I'm silent sometimes too
When I have nothing to say
And I know 

Words may not kill someone
But they can surely
Cause a piece of you to 
be very very quiet.

The Accident

The girl cried and I hugged her.

She dropped her water bottle,

Smashed into the car in front of her,

Which smashed into me.

This traveled me to another place.

I could see clearly now

There are little spaces in life

Spider webby things resting

So fragile and tentative

On leafy edges

Totally dependent

On which way the wind blows.

The Day after Valentines Day

You arrive so quietly, so gently,
Soft snowflakes who float and swirl
Breathtaking in your dance
Opening curtains on my seasonal heart.

This performance has a bright opening
Clap for you and I receive cold kisses,
Squint at your white chaos and my eyes long
For contrast in branches and trees.
Dizzy with delight, I dance with you.

The side stage door twinkles
I sense a cast change coming.
Wands of wind blow in the next act.
Bent bushes once butterfly full
Bow to the weight of performance.

Crystal coverlets lie in mounds.
My new eyes in sharp focus
Catch sight of something center stage
In the quiet globe of winter,
The most brilliant red bird I have ever seen.

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.