A cool cloudy morning, leniency after the weekend’s heat. A dog throws itself down the ravine in pursuit of a ball, the neighbor unleashes a cascade of glass bottles getting ready to pack up the house. All day in the mountains yesterday, sweat, scree, snow. Aching today, a reminder, the summit hard-earned, but elation tempering the bite of elevation, and descent always less benign than we thought.
Morning, overcast, insistent doves. A bright gray, an unsettled wind saying soon this will all blow over. The lake houses all full this weekend, bits of chatter from other porches, I mean, it is what it is— or nearer to home the silent neighbor, surveying his swaying grape vines . Our grapes are dusky-hued, small beads, the birds aren’t even interested yet, the basil deep green and starting to bolt– expectations a difficult thing. Still, the pepper […]
But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling, the mountains look like the hulls of capsized ships, slime-hung and barnacled. Think of the long trip home. Should we have stayed at home and thought of here? Where should we be today? Is it right to be watching strangers in a play in this strangest of theaters?
// Berceuse // The small dog got her hackles up before the owl lit on the roof a small soft sound like a slide of dirt outside in the open stretch of night its compatriot hoo-ed and we argued over stars this is arcturus or is it mars? I was wrong; dry air, water in my eyes, the largesse of sky cradled in these dry grass hills– the town, the hour, everything stilled, even the tumult […]
Napali coast so easy on the eyes hills softened by mist waves blunted by distance except sometimes falling like a rifle shot a retort and then that silence that so underscores the drama that preceded it high surf warning we watched it glut dry coves appetites whetted for destruction the ocean rampant avenging and we argued about the height of the waves breaking far offshore and if any were whales and it may be tempting to think clarity with distance but […]
You said you hear the coyotes more at night now, that deer traipse down the gully’s broken scree with inherent trepidation, their silence speaking for them as much as any yip or yowl. I miss the cold nights there when it’s so clear a halo rounds the moon, sharp air forcing awe from my ungrateful lungs. I miss the length of a northern winter night, with ample room for new and old fears, and how fresh […]
OPTIONAL POETRY 