Is the wry grin an old hippy makeswhen hiding a handfulof magic mushrooms. Or the way strangers feel innocentand accomplished at the summit. Nowhere but down to go from there. Sucking the jeweled teeth of the Flatirons like kids.
nature
How to Treat Water
Store in a copper basin with tulips or rose petals, under a salt lamp. Pray over and be kind to it. Play Mozart andChopin for it. Let it know youas a friend, and always, alwayssay thank you.
Encounter on the Moose River
Startled by steps –that New Balancebounce – loud asBoeing jets glidingthrough the metallicclouds of a perfectaloneness, a blueheron hides betweentwo teal wings, foldingand glittering, holdingits eyelids near theflowing stillness of ariver, bare and abundant.
Bio-graph
The mind is rustlingclothes, sound shadowsand deadening echoes. The feel of her proximityand the wall when a blindman is walking too close. Like black panthers, all of usfind our way by vibrations, when the night gets too dark. And in the morning, the mind isa patch of parsley green moss onthe white flesh of birch trees. […]
After Breathing
I notice.Everything. How the inkon my paperhas more thanone color of blackand feels delicate as silk. The hard plastic wheels of a stroller scraping the gravel. Like crackling embers,the stillness of a solitary pineneedle sighing in the breeze.An eternal thing, like bloodflowing for its own sake. That spring taskof bringing life again. Or the neighbor’s Calico […]
The Call
comes when you are waitingfor the shower and disinfection, and when you reach the bottom of the sinkwithout clothes, shoes, or even hair. The call comes when you are baptized with a number. The numbers told everything. For they told the world, in particular, how yourefused to let yourself live without its sorrow. A blessing that […]
Blue Mountain II
Anointed by the elements you are my blueeyed mountain jewel, my empty breeze returning togreet the lips of a valley asleepin the sky
We Need the Soil
because the roots are a gorgeouscatastrophe of gargling raindrops those empty diamond shaped facescontaining the dreams of elderberries because she fills earth’s basket with the black resinous warmth of grandmother’s hands breaking the ruby white stalksof rhubarb and celery, reenacting each contagious morningthe cherished dew of midnight’s tears as the wild and mischievousrhythms of eternity nears
Harvest Moon
laced with the benign clarity ofliquefying Moonlightmy Cherokee mother hung rattlesnake skins the same wayher grandmother leanedBull Nose peppers on long fat cedar beams letting go of the softflow of cares and allthat belongs to theCreator
Replaced
Most of my water escaped long ago too,and which one of us was reallydesigned to withstand the pressure? Slowly filtered through solid rock,the remains are all that remains: pyrite and calcite and Uranium. Armored fish patrolling the depths,consuming the soft, fleshy parts, anddisappearing into the crystal lattice.