OPTIONAL POETRY

Some mornings exist in a void, so clear and calm I can hear the morning traffic rushing over the bridge, something like fast water or a sea breeze. What I would not give to see the ocean today.  We all have our tides and mine has gone out for far too long. Even the smell of salt would act as balm for this gutting spring tide; uncovering the most confidential of tide pools, the most […]

Lamb, who made you? Heartlessness begets heartlessness– I’m sorry  for sticking you with the bill.  Even tygers have a conscience,usually pickled in beer, and egged on by the knowing smirks of waiters.

I guess that’s why they call it the blues, piped into the grocery store, a slow-up at the checkstand, I’ll miss my bus for sure. Oh Elton, I don’t really care, wandering the aisles and looking at cereal. The passage of people makes a place feel lonely, grocery stores and airports, especially at odd hours. The linoleum seems sad. I wish it didn’t — but it’s things like this that write the songs, not just […]

The 3 AM bird may not be real; I usually hear it after starting from a dream, this time lightning and thunder, but the brightest I could imagine, the most ear-cracking.  I had to get up and walk around the darkened house, half-sure someone had tried to break in. Nothing. I had smelled smoke, saw sparks cascading from the roof before I woke. The 3 AM bird called again, what could it be saying at such […]

And as the sun set, rain from a clear-ish sky, everything softening, on the lake a convoy of geese, lines of goslings; we sat under umbrellas meant for the sun, waited for the rain to ebb; construction workers with headlamps on steered an aluminum boat through the skeleton of pylons; the new bridge half done; I’ll move long before it’s finished. I know nothing is forever. Nothing is forever. Nothing is forever, but sometimes I wish it was.

The morning off, should walkto the market and buy plums for a tart.  But it’s startedto drizzle, and are they even in season?  This place isnothing compared to where I’ve just been; I’m in no moodto tease out the beauty of this pink rhododendron.It’s gaudy, domesticated, and the roses have blight.This morning has no draw, feeling uneasy as breakfastafter harsh words were spoken. Even the sun is a little off —sickly, wan– unsure if it will clear up or […]

Today I’ve heard Led Zeppelin on the radio, incessantly,  including D’ya Mak’er twice.What does it mean?  And today in the garden, a random Russian woman  told me, there’s no suchthing as perfect in this life, joining a long series of Russian female archetypes that arc through my life story and give unsolicited advice.  Maybe the pointpatiently waiting for a sign is that after a while onegets bored and elects  to just act.  It’s not likelove is a finite quantity; where’s the […]

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 […]