Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Motel Coffee

 
                                                                ...
 nebraska highway

                            ... diesel engines in the night 

                                                                                            ... motel coffee blues 



Sunday, February 25, 2024

The Storm


 ... a storm passes through the apple trees

                                    ... mourning doves sway with the wind



Artwork: Ericamaxine Price

Saturday, December 30, 2023

Windy Night

                       ... windy night / memories press closer




Photograph: Glenda twitter.com/blueridgepeace

Thursday, November 23, 2023

Greyfeathered Sky


    ... no pale pink or lavender today

                                ... just greyfeathered sky

                                                                                       ... wings of the great blue heron



Photo: Patrick Wolf

Tuesday, July 18, 2023

Five Beautiful Words

     
                                 ... when asked for five beautiful words I said mine are rather simple

                       ... but I never tire of them

                                                                           river

                                                                           meadow

                                                                           bluebells

                                                                           starlight

                                                                           home



Image: Nicholas Hely Hutchinson

Thursday, June 8, 2023

Yellow Flowers

 
                                        ... on the other side of the fence line / a field of yellow flowers

                         ... the poem that is my life



Photograph by Megan Nash

Monday, March 6, 2023

At the End of This Path

  
                                                        ... at the end of this path my childhood waits 

                                  ... old sawmill / wild raspberries


 


Photographer Unknown

Friday, November 25, 2022

The Object of My Affection

     
                                                   ... below my kitchen window

                             ... a young whitetail / the object of my affection

                                                                          ... rubs his antlers on an empty apple tree



Painting: Jeanie Tomanek

Friday, October 21, 2022

The Potter's Presence


                                                               on a hill overlooking the san juan

                                                               a black and white sherd
 
                                                               fingerprint pressed in clay

                                                               I hold it in my palm

                                                               feel the potter's presence

                                                                                




Photographer Unknown

Sunday, September 11, 2022

At the Back of the Field


                                              ... at the back of the field / under a canopy of green

                        ... the beekeeper's hives

                                       ... the busyness of making life a little sweeter




Painting: Joy Laforme

Friday, September 2, 2022

Cows

 
                                            along the highway that passes through my childhood

                                            cows crowd the fence line 
 
                                            their brown bodies, white faces / shining in the tall grass


                                            I don't know why they've made me so happy

                                            I can't stop smiling



Photographer Unknown

Monday, August 29, 2022

Golden Glow


                      between the apple tree that's almost dead
                                                                                      
                      and the remains of the ramshackle shed

  

                                                   my mother's righteous golden glow



Wednesday, August 10, 2022

Practicing Eternity


... across the everpresent sky / two swans in twilight

practicing eternity




Saturday, July 16, 2022

The Photo



                                                          I used to feel guilty having the photo
 
                                                          The one you sent your brother from boot camp

                                                 Your note to him on the back


                                                 He handed it to me on your front porch

                                                 The summer before he died

                                                 Insisted I have it

                                                   

                                                 Now you're gone too


                                                          And the photo?

                                                          It's where it was meant to be

                                                          I think he knew that when he gave it to me


                                                


Sunday, June 26, 2022

The White Pine


                                          ... white pine of my childhood / you travel the highway of night

                        ... to where I stand on my porch / still listening





Photograph by Chris Perry

Friday, June 3, 2022

The Marsh



                                                        driving by a childhood marsh

                                                        a red winged blackbird flits from reed to reed 


                                                        nothing's diminished / nothing remains




Image by Jamie Heiden

Monday, May 9, 2022

The Feather

 
                       ... I picked up a feather in my yard

                                                              ... and as I carried it to the house it talked to me

                                 ... told me it didn't want to be in my collection on the porch

                                                                           ... but with those inside the house / on my bookshelf

                                            ... where it now quietly resides



Photograph by Peter James

Thursday, May 5, 2022

Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Reading a Poem


                                                              reading a poem in an anthology

                                                              a poem that begins with grandmothers

                                                              ringing the necks of chickens

                                                              and ends with sir isaac newton

                                                              sitting on a bed

                                                              I realize I'd skipped a page

                                                              read two poems as one

                                                              and that my friends is poetry

                                                              sometimes you end up 

                                                              in a place wholly unexpected



Art by Rodney Hatfield

Tuesday, March 8, 2022

Messages

 

                                               some days you'd call just to share something                                 


                                               a poem, a song, a story from your childhood

                                               the atacama desert's annual rainfall


                                               there are days I still drive down my road 

                                               wondering if you've called


                                               your message blinking out into the universe

                                             




Sunday, February 20, 2022

Songs of Spring


                                                ... in the crab apple tree ... cardinals / hoarfrost letting go

                            ... beyond the ice broken river ... coyotes

                                                                                                        ... songs of spring



Photographer unknown

Monday, February 7, 2022

Swans

 
                         ... along the riverbank / sunlit swans asleep in the snow

                                                                                    ... I hope they know how much I love them



Image: Polina Washington

Tuesday, December 7, 2021

The Week Before

   
                                                          the week before he died

                                                          he called and asked if I'd read him a poem

                                                          the poem I'd sent in a message the night before

                                                          the one that says, "no one you love is dying"

                                                          we knew it wasn't true

                                                          but I read it as though it was




Saturday, October 30, 2021

Twilight

    
                                             ... twilight lingers in the treetops

                                                            memories float



Wednesday, October 13, 2021

Half Moon


 ... what I've forgotten / what I remember

                              ... half moon in a blue sky



Image: Polina Washington

Tuesday, September 7, 2021

Familiar Back Roads


an old song on the radio

takes me down familiar back roads

to where you once lived


but your house has been torn down 

the mailbox is gone / the driveway, overgrown

only the gate remains


across the road 

on the far side of the pond

two swans, drift




Tuesday, July 27, 2021

A Blue Bandana

 

                                          ... wandering in and out of each other's lives

                       ... the years turn into decades

                                                                  ... until one of us is gone, the other left remembering 


                                         ... you lean back on your elbow, blue bandana wrapped around your head

                       ... I sit cross legged in a long cotton dress 

                                                                 ... on the stereo, the sound of silence 


Photographer unknown

Sunday, July 11, 2021

Wildflowers

   
                              ... up and down old river road 
wildflowers waving in the summer wind



Photograph: Marianne Majerus

Friday, April 23, 2021

Nothing But Light

                                                    
                      ... from the meadow to the fence line / I follow the faint trace of our old path                
     
                      ... in place of your absence / nothing but light




Photograph by Alvar Astulez

Monday, March 22, 2021

Things We Choose to Keep

                                       ... things we choose to keep

                                                                                ... the pillow case that bears his scent

                            ... the empty glass still on the nightstand

                                                            ... a brush that holds some wisps of hair / the myth of hope



Image by Polina Washington