Dear Ms-tery Guess-t

Oh
Pleeze
Great-Giving

Help
Uz
Bee
Lessss
Oh-
Bliv-
Eee-
Us

N
Mor
A-
Where
Uv
U
Inn
Ah-
Therrz

Ah-
Menn
Ah-
Wimm-
En
!!

Forest Magic 2

Quiet aroused her nesting 

heart, arms of spruce, birch
and hawk wrapped
around her resting head,

who can tell us how

and what else 
is there to say?

Forest Magic

Quiet soothed and aroused

her nesting heart, wrapped arms

of spruce, birch, and hawk

around her resting head,

who can tell us how

and what else 
is there to say?

HEY SISTER, HEY BROTHER CAN YOU SPARE US AND OUR GRANDCHILDREN SOME CLIMATE CHANGE??

On my morning walk today I saw winds of chaos

blow modified seeds across all boundaries.

Birds become stranded as bees are poisoned, yet why

and how do we these facts avoid?

We shit repeatedly onto this planet like drunks

bleary-eyed on a bender, denying she’s our only home.

More often than not, coal-fired denials, our addiction

to cars, overseas trips for business and pleasure

make for a heating-up sky that fucks the ground.

Glaciers recede swelling the seas, vicious tornadoes

and floods destroy whole towns. Every Summer

and Autumn hellfires rage and abound.

You and I mostly sit and stare, bonded to these screens

and comfortable chairs, drive-thru happy meals

and lattes grande, frozen in place by the findings of science.

Meanwhile sentient mammals, our children’s children’s children

and earth’s future drowns. The choice is ours: to attend 

to what’s real and grow ourselves now in hopeful spirit 
together and, our mother the planet, wholly defend,

to clearly see these seeds of what’s happening and hard truths befriend,

or decide in this stupor that numbs to become deaf and blind

to birdsong and bee-buzz disappearing, Life without butterflies

and gardens, peaceful walks at dawn,

one where grandchildren’s dreams are too soon dying….

today is

it. Saturate
in each moment

like a monk
at morning
prayer,

like a chubby toddler
on her wide-eyed
prowl.

tomorrow is
but flash

unwritten fiction.

yesterday, an abandoned

destination.

THIS
is it....

receive what's here
with open hands
and heart,

every breath allowed
to savor this feast
named now.

Black Mark On Purple Page

A single crow
knee-deep in breakfast
cavorts and caws
on my neighbor's lawn

where purplish flakes
are strewn and spackled
across green grasses.

Springtime's gift:

this snowfall
from jacaranda cloud-cover
ablaze above.

a tiny bird

skitters,
pops into,
then bursts
out of,
the tree.

what she learned in therapy

is, as Plato taught,
to continously

'Practice Dying',

because everything lasts,

for
awhile....

Prescription for Ease

May daylight and nightdark
hold you often
in their sturdy arms,

their twin gaze
that sustains and softens.

And may a breeze of blessing
kiss your waiting lips
and cheeks every dusk,

each pearly dawn
your whole life long!

Walking To Waken

Stroll outside with crows and quiet,
bathing skin and spirit in morning's
early light,

feel caressed and aroused
within a subtle waterfall

of wild ease splashing
you in vibrant juicy joy.

Breakfast Ambush Inside Minneapolis Cafe

Suddenly a great blue
arrived from nowhere
and captured me
completely. I have never

been so free, so large
and so little as in
that Sky of Love, 

that spacious billowing ambush
among eggs over easy, toast,
hash browns and coffee,

this strange familiar immensity
inside and around, encompassing
every prison we knowingly
or unknowingly create, 

this truth 
cerulean,
universal, 
artesian,

rising and flowing all ways 
behind and through
brittle fear’s facades,
those premature coffins.

Oh Breath that more
than pleases, that takes
one’s breath of disbelief
away....

  morning, first thing

Climbing clumsily back and down

into his hovering body

through morning’s thunk and haze,

(undisturbed) a tiny lake arises here, blue and round

from bedroom’s quietude.

(Grinning brightly through eyes of blear,

he’s delighted and unfazed)

                 Still, Life

Bent over, he’s reeling like a has-been

Southern sheriff and wobbles into Wal-Mart

"for just a couple things" on a gray Monday

afternoon past the dented cars, crushed cups

and homeless shopping carts left for dead

on the outskirts of the mall.

Inside the air is sticky as wet flour. Bruised

peaches leak onto his hands.

He shuffles past tenements of papaya stacked

next to purple plums hard as stone.

This still life reflects back at the old man
making his way through onions and rhubarb
and chard and on toward the gallon of whole milk

and, later, four jars of Metamucil before unfolding

ancient paper sacks at the cash register.

Outside, behind the steering wheel of my parked car,
I wait for dad and write down these lines searching

for some story to tell of shared life, of our love really,

before the wordless drive home, before the slow

veer up the concrete stairs alone.

            Grace

A day of simple translucence.

Awake early, no memory of dreaming.

Two cups of coffee, strong, softened with cream, just right.

The melaleuca tree shimmered in sun through a transparent window.

No one called before noon. I felt such contentment.

Later, weeded the yard, thankful for fingers in dirt, blue bucket brimming with green.

Down the street kids played baseball in afternoon light. Fathers and uncles with kindness coached new skills.

Thoughts of Quincy my grandson brought big smiles. Soon I’ll travel north to visit him and his parents.

And now, up high to the left a palm tree shimmies and sings in breezes at nightfall. I wait to meet Ana my friend.

   Sweet Surprise

Sometimes you need
to renege on that alleged
destination, pull over
and park your car beside
a mountain road, dare
to leave the cell phone
and camera in the trunk,
side-step poison oak
and protruding roots as you
slip-slide down
a ravine of fern and rock
shaded by tribes
of towering Redwoods
where, at its bottom
steeped in ribbons
of dark and light,
a singing stream
and stillness beyond
words and maps
can find you.
And thriving amidst
what’s been richly given,
such a friendly silence
held within nature’s wholeness,
you finally find yourself
arriving where you’ve
belonged all along....