Mist-fine drizzles usher rains—damp pant-legs dry
above the carpet and below the floor
furnace works of wonder.
**
sometimes arboreal
like our own
roots
of the leather fern plant
mostly balance
the rest we figure out
**
real revolution fully sees
every act count all circumstance
ever
encounter-fuel
for next steps closer where
teachers and leaders number
beyond counting
**
Existence as we can know it today is
January cold atoms
bunched brittle and bone clear—
empty blue sky pressing
close any skin
dared bare.
**
choreography memorized
isn’t music
heard
necessarily—
to ask what a life looks like
may lead us
nowhere
true
**
a day, full
together into night
under a slice of moon-
holding sky-black
here scratched
to quiet close
**
whatever stories we tell
of it or to it
the day
goes
its way
never leaving us out
nor behind:
and so the poet then
might well tell whatever
words heard:
music moving
breaths
about and around
day’s workings
**
what might be
hinges what is
sharpened
in relief,
where we would be roots
where we are—
for me,
fine layers of longing
for settled clarity bubbles
warmth-worn confusions—
pre-paid cremation brings
with it settled
closure realer than
who dies
then
**
The day at hand: muted
fog drifting
light, cold
fingers.
**
Note to self re: things forgotten
waiting during Covid: flowers
are not passive; even grass in night
dark never rests.
**
The squirrel skirts the top of the fence
holding an avocado in its teeth,
till carefully tucking it under a vine tangle
corner of memory all its own
quiet calling—sitting
here listening
to that ever-flowing tending
needs
I can’t begin
to know,
offering
this.
**
seamlessly shifting
puddle signals shrug
street light adjustments
for breath-born eye avenues
of negotiation for
feet seeking alignments—
all enabled by air
**
Inked words run page lines
like gully-brush like
creviced water-seep
that rises petaled colors
to grey sky-swell
wishing blue.
**
And I can’t help
thinking
how much so many
words told
the years missed,
millions
of little move-notes
sung to
too busied ears
now ringing
so much
clearer.
**
And if you don’t think
grasses and scrub
and trees run ridge lines
and ravines
and canyons
with coyote
and fox
and rabbit, just
open your eyes.
**
Rains pummel
early hour
light turning—
listening:
blanket warm
breathing
given too.
**
neither right
nor wrong
things are
as they are
unfold
our living
true to itself
as is
tree to earth
forrest
to sky-
reaching
both
and all
**
Soft light-wakes
left by night’s ceding strokes
nuance as no lover
ever could—weightless
drawing forth of every
all offered.
**
This month
January sighs so long
even the moon looses fullness
before its end, Best catch your breath
here. February waits for no one.
