Homeland

You say
lay down
tell me your needs
two beautiful lines
that perfectly illustrate
what had been missing

until you
held me
the world stilled
and I stopped spinning
finally resting
on solid ground.

Reparations

Some things never change
people are who they are
at their core
it is only now
past the mid-point of life
that we question
past actions
and hard consequence
wonder if paths chosen
led us too far astray
or to exactly where
we were meant to be
all along.

We ask those
we have hurt
for forgiveness
sometimes granted
often withheld
it is up to us
to put our demons
to final rest
like recalcitrant children
with tenderness
lest they rise
and consume
our souls.

Is it selfish
to ask another
to excuse
past transgressions?
One more instance
of taking
rather than giving?
An attempt to soothe
the raw ache
consuming our bones
knowing
we've done another
an injustice?

Best to absolve
exonerate the guilty
set us all free
to hold pain
overfills the vessel
perpetrator and victim
awash in the same
liquid shame
spill this sorrow
out into the world
let it become
a drop
in the vast ocean.

Sun

All I've known
of love
has been bound
by duty, expectation
filaments of need

golden moments
of being
recognized
a rare flicker
in the darkness.

I sought
a nameless place
where one could
defy the laws
of gravity

held captive
simply
by the radiance
of a rising sun
between us.

Yearning

Songs and poems
jars of jam
offered up
like jewels
obscure allusions
of longing
for love

we hide
the truth
behind gestures
and cryptic brail
scratches on walls
our lonely hearts
cannot decipher.

Quiet

The quiet river
whispers
undulating
in its fertile bed
the smooth current
barely a ripple
on transparent silk
spread softly over
algae-draped rocks.

The wind rises
alder leaves bare
silver bellies
to the sun's welcome
blessing
as I count mine
they are many
for I have learned
the value of gratitude.

Fighting what is
leads nowhere
it does not matter
which eddy
pulls me to shore
I have let go
control, an illusion
held beyond all reason
fear, time wasted.

Better to be the leaf
weightlessly floating
then drawn below
caressing stones
worn smooth by time
rising again
to glide unresisting
on the gilded light
of evening.

Statewide

This road trip sours
with each tire rotation
through the Walla Walla valley
dressed in verdant silk,
past the pulp mill billowing
noxious clouds into the air,
on the wide sweep of freeway
embracing the Tri Cities sprawl,
during the slow cruise-control glide
past Yakima's ubiquitous troopers,
rising to the desolate sage
wasteland of the Army Firing Range.

Miles accumulate
on my soul and heart,
even Ellensburg unfolding
green and lovely, rimmed
by the serrated Stuart Range,
does not dispel their weight.


The rest stop at Elk Heights
swarms with holiday travelers
unfolding stiffly from vehicles,
tottering off to pee and stretch
before continuing West,
fish-scale clouds fan out
from the front settling
on the Summit, rain
descends, accenting
the clench in my gut

brought on by a long day
spent thinking how love
may not be enough
when resolve has seized up
like one of those cheap
toy cars, over-wound
until broken.

Jain

This morning I am
a Jain practicing ahimsa
weaving meticulously around
thousands of fog-kissed webs
a minute world visible to eyes
no longer willfully blind.

Each dwelling is self-contained
woven into surrounding crabgrass
trees to the tiny inhabitants
crouching cozy beneath
fluttering canopies sparking
rainbows in the lifting light.

Revisionist History

How easy to distill the past,
sifting out impurities
so a clean silky edge
will soothe another’s tongue.

Serve up what flatters,
spit out distasteful lapses; swallow
raw memories and let them sink
into our tender parts

deep into the silted
heart of gray.

The lies we
tell each other,
tell ourselves.

We are all revisionists
editing our histories, omissions
catered to the prevailing
whims of taste and culture

until intimacy unmasks us.

Poem From an Other

When my heart is hollow
and jagged synonyms
for grief, loss, pain
tumble from my eyes

when there is no comfort
in old routines
and everyday objects
become waiting landmines

when even simple kindness
disturbs the surface
I have worked
so hard to calm

I turn to you, favored poet
but find you busy
constructing verbal walls
to keep the rabble out.

With my finger I trace
book-jacket photo
lines of worry carved
on your bald head

to fear
your own voice
might not be heard
above the dissonance.

Have you forgotten?

Self-expression
is a lonely highway
traveled by many
owned by no one

where accolades
provide no fuel
but true words
freely given do.

Foreign Object

My soul is ancient metal, containing all the secrets of the universe, if it would only speak.

I orbit another; longing for my own gravitational pull, rate of rotation, my own elliptical relationship with the sun.

I am a verdant streak in the summer sky, a slash in the atmosphere of a larger body.

I wait at the edge of obscurity, while those who understand little about me decide if I am worth naming.

The truth is, I will never be known.
The truth is, I have always been known.

We are linked in ways beyond all knowing.

Intention

I wish I had
my daughter's forgiving heart
my son's radar sensitivity

the ability to start over
without remembering wounds
inflicted by barbed remarks
allegedly untainted with intent
to harm or inflame old arguments

but my heart believes intention
presages any interaction
words, the concrete bridge
to a truth from which
the soul cannot hide

Flame

I wake with tears
drying on my cheeks
Douglas firs lob cones
at the roof like shrapnel
rain needles impassive
window faces
storms attempt
to shatter.

To hold fast is never a given
wind can shift and knock you
from your complacent perch
shallow protection against
the inevitable creep of age
and treacherous doubt gnawing
at our ability to affect change
in ourselves, each other, the world.

And yet
these very words
spark faint rebellion
for without imagining
there can be no future
without love, no one
to cup a tender palm
around this wavering flame
not yet extinguished.

Rooftop Views

Meteors slash the black fabric
night, trailing green and gold
summer heat fading
drowsy children pillow
into shoulder creases
content beneath the universal roof

shingles grind into skin
like iron-justified habits
cool starlight in blue veins
what temptation holds sweet surrender
to shutter eyes with scales of forgetting
to blaze like a meteor into darkness.

Soot Birds

Fire-cloud soot bird
wings westward
blood red tail shadowing
ponderosa, lodge pole, aspen
helpless before the heat-driven beast.

Bronze-winged sisters circle low
over wheat fields where dust devils
vortex wildly, building speed until
they run out of dirt and disappear
like genies, back to the air

transmuted

the earth is the tree
is the fire is the smoke
destruction, the vortex
death, the rebirth.

Monk in Hiking Boots

He is
walking the white line
his arm a repetitious arc
sounding
a single tone
timed to the pace
of hiking-booted feet
treading the pavement.

Saffron robes have grayed
over long meditative miles
witnessed by curious commuters
riding the pendulum away
from his purposeful daily counterpoint
and the freedom held in rhythmic ritual;
how the mind stills and gathers
in the swinging blur of hand and stick.

I roll the window down
seeking precious solace
as I hurtle past, knowing
he walks for me too.
I want to stop the car
and fall in behind;
feel the timeless drum,
the stillness of salvation.

Cocoon

A fat, false-eyed caterpillar consumed Liberty
inexorably, leaf-by-leaf, stripped her bare
leaving a hardened chrysalis-nation spinning
hypnotically in a chill global wind.

Beneath layered fear and isolation
truth and freedom have been transformed
into a black, all-knowing moth
with wings wide enough
to obliterate dissention.

Driving

We think the past vapor, faded
ghosts unworthy of resurrection or introspection
dissipating behind us as we speed recklessly
into the future, heads out the window
hair afire, eyes streaming impotent tears of woe and joy.
It doesn’t seem worth the effort to pull over and reflect
far easier to squander our souls, to taste the black
drag of criticism, ridicule, stale fear, to believe the doubting
chorus singing monotonously in the background
until we arrive in the middle of nowhere, wondering
how we ended up so far from our own truth.
It is in this solitary place we remember
ourselves, unchanged and immutable
cradled delusions evaporate
burning possibility lingers
like sweet, unforgettable perfume.

Story Bracelet

Bone and walrus tusk
encircle my wrist
in memory of you,
on each square
a scrimshaw picture,
joined, they tell a story:

a hunter leaves home, alone
on the ice, he navigates
the tender under-skin of my arm,
tracks and shoots a seal,
attaches rope and hauls it back
to the polished beginning.

Your story does not circle
it ends in sea and tears;
that day, Grief
took up sharpened antler
and carved your life
into the curve of mine.

Curl

Each curl of conversation
stills my tongue, half-sentences
stranded in the mire
of biting reason

words silently form
protests, defenses
reasons and intentions

worthless to ears already fed
with the insistent conundrum
accompanying every attempt
at reconciliation.

Old Dog

He grows more beautiful every day
his wizened face, yellow coat
fading to white. He is both stately
and goofy in equal parts, a loving soul
who never had an enemy, human or beast.

Last fall it was hard to tell he wasn’t a puppy,
now he’s eleven, seventy-seven in dog years,
his hips stiffen during the night and into morning,
though after coffee, he’s still up and begging for a walk.

I put my hand on his chest; feel his heart, gently
rocking under my palm. I whisper in his ear, ask
him to stay with us a while longer -

he sighs, deeply, resonantly.