I taught at San Lorenzo Middle School in King City, California for thirty-six years before retiring in June of 2006. Phyllis, my wife of 42 years, and I still reside in King City.  I am a life-long rock-climber and mountaineer.  I've made numerous ascents in the Sierra Nevada and Yosemite, though my home crags are in Pinnacles National Park.  Many of my climbing stories have been published over the years.  One, Three's a Crowd, was produced as a radio play and broadcast on KUSF in 2006 and later made it onto PBS.  

I'm an experienced Fantasy and SF writer.   My novella Vienna Station won the Galaxy prize and was published as an e-book.  It is available for Kindle on Amazon.  I co-wrote The Man Who Murdered Mozart with Barry Malzberg a few years back.  My fantasy novel Chaos Gate was published in 2011.  You may have run across my Joel in Tananar, too. Most recently, Moonlight Mesa Associates published my Young Adult historical novel Dawn Drums which was awarded first place in the 2014 Arizona Authors Association's annual literary contest.  

Mariposas de Yosemite
 

Gold oak leaves soaring
In arcs of autumn fire,
Your wings shimmer with
Winter’s first breath.
 
Wings of stone,
Snow-white and shining above you,
Shelter your flight this morning
And a few mornings more.





Mighty Again


First snow
Pokes its nose
Into our camp
Like a puppy
Unsure of its welcome
Then curls around our fire
At a respectful distance.
Holly berry embers
Glow scarlet
As young pines near
Dress early for Christmas.
The ledges
Of our morning's climb
Shoulder new furs.
Deep in darkness
East of our fire,
Mallory and Sill,
Palisade and Miter,
Parched by summer,
Are white
                          
                             -Published in “Loose Scree” in 2010



December Fields


Autumn Furrows
Loam and umber,
Mute and umber,
Stilled by steel
        And coming winter –

Sundown cobwebs
Trace the yellow morning knows,
The yellow April sows,
Over ancient faces
        In the soil –

Earth reconciled
To child on man of dying
In straight furrows lying
Near lines of brittle mourners
        Waiting to be mourned –

Lover, loved
Come close to me,
Sing now of the unbound sea
And of sea-birds
        Flying.




A Walk Postponed


Like wild trout 
My thoughts dart away
From the shadow 
Of your death.

We did not stop 
Near Ojito;
We did not kneel 
In bay-scented shade;
We did not sip water
Frost-spiced;

But some October day
At Willow Springs
Beneath sable ridges,
Or in Lost Valley's
Wood-smoke dusk, 
We'll meet,
For these hills
Are eternal

And you
Are of them.





Sunlight Seas


Ripple and surge
Across the nylon wall
Of my tent.
Pine shadow clouds drift there -
Swaying, soothing -
Before I sleep.
Both sons sleep already, 
Free to slow down
In the tent’s dappled warmth,
Free from the cell phone scatter
Of young lives.
Just once
In this year of Isis
And Ebola
We share a nap in Tuolumne.
It’s much,
Much more
Than enough.