Winter Storm

                                                         ... on the heels of sorrow / a winter storm

                                    ... this empty house



Image: Jamie Heiden

In Sunlight

                                 ... on a stump in sunlight I watch you clean fish / your cat in my lap 

                 ... thirty some years

                                            ... it's still the only day that's ever really mattered




Image: Salvador Dali, Persistence of Memory (detail)

Snow Mist Morning

   
                                      ... on a misbegotten detour through the foothills

                    ... I followed the smoke from your chimney

                                                ... lost in a snow mist morning ... it took years to get back home

                                                                              

Blackbirds

   
                                        ... along the fence line blackbirds gather

                                                               the sound of leaving
                                                                                  ... dark as their wings




Lino print by Annie Soudain

The White Rhinoceros

                                            On this cold november night darkness comes early

                                            calling for a quiet, solitary celebration: a hot bath, candles

                                            a glass of wine.


                                           the water covers me, my eyes close temporarily

                                           and in that brief moment, that transcendent moment

                                           I see a white rhinoceros.


                                           I don't know what it means. It doesn't matter.

                                           It only matters that I saw him.

The Highway

                        ... he asked if I like george benson
                                                

                                                                           ... as the white lines on the highway fell beneath us

                                   ... strings bending / fingers finding / every perfect chord

Sacred Objects

                                    december / nineteen eighty seven

               ... not wanting him buried in bare feet 

                                                                   ... we were sent off to buy a pair of socks / black, preferably

                      ... carried them back to the funeral home ... like the sacred objects they were


       
                                     
Photograph by Molly Matalon

Within the Call of a Whippoorwill

                                           ... within the call of a whippoorwill just before daybreak

                     ... my back porch bedroom as a child

                                                                          ... the bedroom of the man I thought I'd love forever

                                ... my bedroom now / in this little house near the river




Photograph by Susan Kimball

Driving Through Northern New Mexico

                                                        ... driving through northern new mexico

                         ... shiprock forever in the distance

                                                                                ... my heart's been in my throat for a very long time



                ... another hour and I'll head north

                                                                      ... camp along the san juan river / fall asleep at dusk

                                  ... pretend I'm not one of the lonely ones






Photograph by Chris Hunter

Another World

   
                                         ... in perfect blue stillness the hours entered another world

                       ... I became him / he became me

                                                        ... so ... now I have to ask  / did he pass on ... or did I?





In memory of my beloved Buddy (Feb 10, 2011 - Apr 13, 2018)

In the Blue Restless Night

                                           in the blue restless night
                                                                  praying for still waters
            
                                           my mother comes to me 
                                                            from a place I catch only a glimpse of                                                                                  
                                           in a glass I recognize from childhood
                                                                               she offers me a drink




Image: "Midnight Lullaby," Henrik Simonsen