I open my kitchen blinds and gape at the hawk, perched on the garden lamp at the edge of my lawn. She notices everything with those prehistoric, ravening eyes, like two old stars, charged with origin stories far more savage than mine. She isn’t here to sing— She’s here to scream— To tear meat from…
On the way to my mailbox I saw this feather sprouting between the grass blades in my lawn. Half in shadow, half in light A reluctant imposter doing a poor job of blending in. I wondered briefly about the animal who left it there to live out its days disenfranchised and alone. A relic of…
If you take a picture of the moon you will never be satisfied. If you walk barefoot in the grass your cats will sniff longingly after your toes. If you put your ear up against hundreds of leaves colliding in a breeze you will hear the ocean. If you can’t bring yourself to turn on…
This picture was taken on a parking lot at the city hall where I work. I stood on a border, some kind of state line, where my car idles on one side and a tiny forest on the other. The entrance was almost imperceptible, but it’s the first thing I noticed. A narrow triangle of…
White orchids don’t have Instagram accounts, much less fake ones posed in a pitcher for my cats to chew on. Still, I wondered yesterday if they long to be noticed and find it insufferable to go days at a time without a single soul snapping their picture. If you really think about it, it’s not…
“…sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness, to put a hand on the brow of the flower and retell it in words and in touch it is lovely…”
If I accomplished nothing else today, I planted Nepeta cataria inside the broad mouth of a flowerpot leftover from my grandfather’s passing. I held a ponytail of her sticky locks and considered long the origin of her species, the ancient quality of dirt unearthed with five extra heaves of the shovel, and of Annie Dillard…
The soul is like Jesus Bare feet in both worlds Everything here has one The dirt soul The cow soul The man soul The sea soul The bird soul The world soul I think it’s so we never forget each other The Other One long bridge So time makes sense Especially…
I can hold my daughter’s compassion in firelight one tiny log at a time make it last her ashes falling into my cup I can hold the weight of the moon in my breath one porcelain eye on my chest make me see her ashes falling into my cup I can hold my soul in…
Dead poets line four walls Fixed eyes, thin skin choking on dust Indignant, gracious Quit looking for me here, they say The best part of living is what you learn alone in the dark when the rest of the world sleeps All the losing and winning Brimming and seeping from pottery shards unearthed in our…
Sobriety Poet 