September 2024
Bio Note: There is a huge fire not far from Chester CA and I worry for the people, the trees, the animals. Luckily we have good air here today. I'm fast at work on a new manuscript and pleased to have poems coming out in One Art Poetry and in the California Quarterly. Life is good.
Porch Says Sit
I.
Already the striated oak leaves
slumber on redwood planks,
curled mischiefs dreaming
of what’s to come: wind’s chill,
its exuberance, thigh deep snow,
and the ever-present overcast sky
obliterating light.
II.
Silhouettes scoot across oaks,
abstract art made by shadow-stroke,
and my own companion shadow
longing for a paint brush’s caress
before life ceases. Yes, this
III.
sweet listening to silence where everything
takes on new life—this love I call my art.
Missing You
I sometimes
press my hand
to my heart
as though
it was your heart.
Such is the way
I continue to live
without you. Who
makes her body
ready for grief
by keeping frayed
letters, their scent
carefully tucked
in an embossed
stationary box?
They’re soft as flannel
and smell of wind.
Their sleeves,
an open kimono.
Originally published in The Power of the Feminine, Vol.II, 2024
Still Standing
I ask Little Bird if she’s feeling okay.
Little Bird doesn’t answer.
She stands immobile on the redwood deck.
I don’t move for fear she’ll frighten off.
Everything has its own timing,
pregnant with possibility,
as in the delicacy of a heartbeat.
I’m standing where I’ve stood
countless times before,
fastened to the beauty of a life
that’s yearly homed me,
where Little Bird stretches her wings
which open like a Japanese silk fan,
then as if all timing were spot-on
she fastens her will to flight,
as though she was created
for the delicate, made to flower air
with outstretched wings.
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