while we were gone
the lettuce bolted
the pea pods grew
outsized and tough
still, full of pearls
to dry, let harden
and plant again next year—
an absurd generosity
asking only for some time
July 30
First the sow and then the cub
flat-faced, gouache-furred
up above the service road
climbing the bike trail
through thick black alder—
then the cub but not the sow, still not
the sow, just wind in the tall grass,
presentiments and doubts
.
A day later, at the border,
waiting in line, looking at photos,
car after car, lurching forward,
again the menace of the unseen,
an arbitrary line, truck routes,
corn fields drawn at right angles,
the same on each side except
here, we are fine, here too,
but maybe less so
July 29
the age of this place!
and still it said the basalt flows
of the Garibaldi range
are relatively young—
one could say something,
then, maybe, about lenses,
about powers of scale, how
a thing comes into focus, so
another falls away, something
about the buoyancy of names,
floating above a place, vagaries
of translation, of words soft
as wet ash, how this alphabet
cannot spell them, how silt
turns this lake otherworldly
and opaque, how at every cursive
turn of trail we stopped—
from a distance, in a sun break,
and framed yet another photo
July 28
arboreal sigh
the wind lifts the boughs
and lets them fall
presaging rain
these little tells—
the terse alarm calls
of the nuthatches
saying maybe, maybe
the cougars have come
down low after stalking
in pairs two mountain ranges over
so unusually bold—
perhaps a harbinger
the canopy dense
the understory opening up
like a secret
no berries are ripe yet
but among the stands
of mountain ash
like clarion bells
a slew of tiger lilies
July 27
We followed the creek
a river, really
loud in its banks
louder still under
the amphitheater
of a bridge—
a striking hue
something primordial
less green than blue
but not fully either
runoff from a glacier
melting unseen
high in the mountain
above us
a supposition—
most of the foothills
blanketed by clouds.
We picked up rocks
and guessed wildly
at their provenance
Granite? Shale?
and threw them back
into the water
or ricocheted them
off boulders to skip
them far into the deep
and I wonder
when you are older
will you see these flights
as random chance
or as probabilities
unpredictable, but known—
and will either bring you
comfort?
Trying something new, if you use Substack
February 2
Snowflakes at the border
of freezing, emphatic, sizeable—
few transition points
are so lovely
here are the last moments before
free-fall, tipping into the inevitable
knowing, knowing well, it didn’t
have to be this way
January 5
what is dormant
and what is dead
and how to know it
dawn is a cloud
a streetlight
through cedar
in lieu of a sun
there is something
heavy about
this stretch of winter
a landing in a way
a water-logged nadir
it rains every day
distance feels distant
January 1
Every morning
is a shore
this one as much
as any other
Some precipices
hold an allure
but not this one
not anymore
December 30
You ask every day now
what is distance
I point to the mountain
white and still as an etching
foreshortened and rising
as if from the lake
you are now gleaning
that words
are slippery fish
two-faced
wide-eyed
dull or gleaming
depending on which
way the scales lie
December 28
A quiet morning, with bird,
and the slow exhale
of the furnace. The fire
stutter starts, we all come
to life. Maybe today
they will find the new
feeder, or the popcorn
we scattered, grown soft
in the rain. The wild here
is more wild than before,
not easily enticed. Maybe
we will find what the coyotes
caught last night, unholy
screams, then, unnerving
silence. Milk clouds this tea,
a leaf sinks, then rises,
like a log rolls over
in brackish water,
like a minute turns,
and then the hour.
OPTIONAL POETRY 