OPTIONAL POETRY

At an early enough hourtravel merges with dreaming;  had to keep switching stationsas the landscape shifted,  caught Sunny FM back alongthe Wenatchee and some show hosted by a DJ named Uncle Dave.  The vineyard and orchard irrigation systems come on early,to minimize loss from evaporation, weaving cocoons of water in the shadows of the valleys.   Some corners of these hills the sunrise doesn’t touch; at the first summit it dropped well below freezing. But soon this gave way to golden Skagit country, horses in paddocks, happy in […]

Everyone is gone.  The lake has calmed, its blue belies its depth. I’ve finally adjusted to the hues, the surprising softness of the landscape, given its history of sweeping fires. I should  try and sleep soon, getting on the road early, but I can’t take my eyes off the contrast of blue and butte, or the recent arrival of a pair of magpies, semaphores in flight. I might stay up to wish upon my cat star– it’s not all a loss then, I’ve relearned […]

The neighbors have gone and the quail that haunts their arbor is losing his voice, sounding more like a tired dog toy than the lothario that he is.  Yet, as I watch he’s attracted a girl: He obviously doesn’t need my pity. Everything is lifting now, and part of it is wine. But, not all – now that she’s caught his eye she leaves and he follows, both sharing the same low flight. Speaking of, the floatplanes have […]

The trick is to keep the handsbusy: A moment of slack  and the boat begins to heel.Tomorrow I’ll return, taking  Blewett pass; I’ll miss sunrise over the umlauts of Leavenworth, might arrive later than I ought.   The art of losing isn’t hardto master, but forgetting  is another matter.  Whathave I left in my wake? There’s whitecaps rising on the water, few boats, the forceof the wind now slamming doors and forcing in others. 

Birds lacking teethwill swallow stones, grind them in their gizzarduntil too smooth to do work. They too gorge on abundance; we stuff it in our cropfor later digestion.  Down by Beebe creek the vegetation was two -faced, showing silveras the wind thrashed  it down. We followeda swallow-tail through a dappling of poplars,so young they barely resembled the treesthey will become.  

It’s not finding a voiceso much as honing it; a mouthful of stones will sharpen a tongue.  

I wish these finches would get to the point.  Mismade the coffee in a haze of sleep. Resembles creosote, not to mention the taste.  A flock of finches is called a fancy, pairing well with the flights of swallows, but I prefer a knot of them; once again drawn to that shifting shape, an illusion of depth as they hurtle small bodies at one another, the cliff, the ground. Why do they do it? Does […]

I think it must be Kenmore Airthat does the run up here, flying right over the house;it’s clear today, and everyone is packing up as he rattles the panes.  I’m staying in this heat until the last possible moment. Have been thinking about the vagrancies of sound; how if you go fast enough you travel before it, how thunder is only closing a gap.  It’s still too cool for heat lightning, but when I next return it may have […]

This has turned into a sort of bout. Not a title fight but I’ve certainly gone the distance: 185 miles and several days; the best I could do at such short notice. Tomorrow I’ll work I say, I’ll right the ship, not write it; a pity for it to end this way, in a desert beside a thin lake but the water here is deeper than I imagined you couldn’t reach bottom if you tried. […]