as i read it now

i have underlined my life

the best parts dog-eared

Too old to forget

 The lads we send off to war

Too young for regret

 A person should read

And hear a comforting song

For respite each day

                                         The revenant nest

Undone by last summer’s gale

Ospreys undeterred

 Barefoot in summer

Ice cream cones and piggyback

Reaching for bubbles

 And then he wondered

Could that have been what she meant

Or was it nothing

 Is there ideal love

Beyond the acts of loving

Does it live without

 It is the same trail

An elder pine has fallen

No heed for my way

An archival oak

Spanning over years and lives

Lynchings and picnics

    250

Which truths are self-evident?

What unites us now?

 The length of my life

Is trifle when compared to

The length of my health

Issue of the fire

An omen of smoke and ash

Plume of nature’s rage

History in wood

Written with light and dark rings 

Thriving - suffering

 Rest under a tree

A fine and tender safety

The song of the leaves

 She is still - like grass

Who sleeps under the forest

And wakes bathed with dew

 We live in a storm

A swelling cloud of stardust

Mostly empty space

 First Americans

Stories before all others

No nation -  just earth

Today is special

A calendar palindrome

6/26/26

 Every four years

We decide in whom we place trust

And hope we were right

 I find atonement

That I am smaller than trees

And host to less life

 

The shimmering grove

Older that any in it

One connected life

 Plants feed on sunlight

Drink up the remains of rain

Savor the rich earth

 I’m a beginner

An innocent without guile

Seeing all as new 

The High Sierra

It’s good there in the summer

When columbine soars

If it entertains

Most people don’t seem to care

Whether truth or lies

 What may redeem us

A reverence for nature

And humility

 Cooperation

The hustling deployment

Assiduous bees

 Plaid shirts and sandals

Bib overalls - faded hats

And generous songs

 When the rind is peeled

And the juice and pulp consumed

What then of our earth?

 once you have lost rights

you will not know them again

the harm is lasting

 the blameless beetle

doing only what it knows

kills a scared tree

 They want our eyes first

It seems innocent enough

Until we are theirs

Heedful devotion

He praises the mere and vast

The wilds as his shrine

 The smell of the sea

Salty vapor of the waves

Like remembering

You are on your way

You linger as the road splits

Where I will find you

 There is nothing still

Everything spins and vibrates

Everywhere flowing

She is full with child

Hoping for indication

Then she feels it turn

Anticipation

 The green grasshopper at rest

Just before the jump

 In fruiting season

As abundance drops from trees

Poets search like theives

Here’s what gives me hope

 I’m encouraged by small things

A seed - dew - the stars

A faithful old man

He will never know the fruit

Yet he plants the tree

 An Asian proverb

The best time to plant a tree

Twenty years ago

 It knows what we see

It devours our attention 

We have now been hacked

 The infinite hand

No trees have the same branches

No leaves the same veins

 If people had roots

We would better love the earth

And cherish water

 She has lost the ebb

Her will drags like an anchor

And catches a rock

 When I am careless 

My best thoughts come unbidden

Bees drawn to nectar

 The fruitful season

Pregnant with ripening crops

Needing only rain

 With all of our words

We fathom each other less 

Than animals can

 It’s time to emerge

To expand through the thin walls

Broken shells remain

 Saturday at noon 

Pig roastin - songs and laughter 

A banjo dancin 

 The first thing you do

You got to scrape the drippings

If you want gravy

 The Chinese leader

Pointed to an ancient tree

Elder U.S.A.

 How welcome the day 

When I answered no queries

Everything as is

A line of quick fluff

The mother quail and six chicks

Scoot under a bush

 A few decisions

Scattered over a lifetime

Make the difference

 I will sit here whist

On a hill above the glen

And wait for the bloom

 If it is still free 

Will you please loan me your heart

Just for old time’s sake

Peacefully removed

From the chase of perfection

He is satisficed

 The beholden moon 

At the mercy of the sun

A pale dependent

 She rolls on her back

Exposing her soft belly

Her tail flat - relaxed

 From here on forward

Smooth and curving easily

It’s a simple road

Urgency of fall

 A bee dashes bloom to bloom

A spent petal drops

 A lark in the barn

Thrashes against the window

The door is open

 Through the west dormer

There’s a view from the attic

Of  gulls and the waves

 An axe cleaves the tree 

Slashing into the heartwood

The limbs groan with pain

 Out of the still pool

A frog jumps - lashing its tongue

The moth is ambushed

 

Sun-soaked rookery

Elephant seals crowd the beach

Blubber to blubber

Despite then and when

 (what I remember - expect)

My body is now

 Baby elephant

Seeks shelter from the fierce sun

Under its mother 

It was a dim plot

 A brief unshadowed drama

Without a climax

 god a metaphor

jesus a philosopher 

divine in all things

 A moment of pause

Between the breath and the word

Before it’s too late

 A part of my day

Intentionally left blank

Quiet - just gazing

 The say of the bees

Who choose to be unchosen

Among the many

 Two spare coyotes

Still hungry from their last hunt

Prowl the arroyo

 Who is important

When the ammunition flies

Whom is saved - whom not?

 It’s fawning season

The young still abed - calling

A doe comes to nurse

 

A monarch lingers 

The eventuality

Clings to the milkweed

 Who dares to abide

The hasty fate of fury

Shame of the willing

 In the bosk of dreams

A peculiar purlieu

Where I wander lost

 Blooms and seed cases

The heritage of gardens

True generations

An old length of twine

(that once fastened a package)

Now in a lark's nest

 The Monterey Bay

With the gulls as my witness

I marry the sea

 Power versus force

Force will fight to prove itself 

Power is moral

 It came back to me

Suddenly in the night sea

A grey whale breaching

Frothing surf beckons

 The dog plunges unrestrained

No fear of the waves

 The better road winds

 Heedfully - around the oaks

With no middle line

 I am an old barn

Drafty - straw dust on the floor

Secrets in the loft

 Spontaneous spring

(with its small incautious hands)

Blesses the garden

Sugar lookin’ gal

Was just there for the dancin’

Curtis on the drums

 The trail is rocky

It gets steeper near the top

But it's worth the climb

 The psalms of nature

You do not need religion

To be reverant

Dancin’ through the night

 They pitch a wang dang doodle

They break down the doors

 Children on their backs

Unimpressable resolve

They hope for a chance

 

No ant by itself

No purpose or achievement

Without the others

Over history

We have all fought in these wars

My heart aches for us

 Estranged by their ages

He no longer knows her hand

But still he reaches

 Untranslatable

One cannot explain the spring

Presence is enough

Will you come with me

You know all the rules by now

The Dead still alive

Great in the smallest

Peace in the ordinary

Respite in simple

 Parents and children

“Bring them back to the Stone Age”

Iran is people

Mankind’s compulsion

Is forever making rules

Nature ignores them

 Imagine a world

In which the only armies

Are those made of ants

 She sits at the wall

Shaded by a locust tree

Spinning a blue  thread

 In the small spaces

Where the moss and spiders live

A private dampness

 Exhausted by day

Distrusting of the darkness

She closed the shutters

The ancient forests

Compressed by the weight of time

Are blood of the wars

 When I fly in dreams

I go to my childhood home

Where it's safe and sure

 Above the ruins

The king demands his share 

Of worship and fear

Irrepressible

Capricious spring lifts her skirt

Barefoot - she dances

Cold and deeply blue

A pacific sea surges

  Its waves smooth the sand

Below my boot soles

 Poetry is ground water

A spring of fresh verse 

 

 With calmness it waits

Brilliantly unambitious 

Almost a secret

 Some clouds are weightless

Consumed by the sky's allure

Others spill to earth 

Anticipation 

 Gardening is a belief

In what is to come

It flies from the tree

Conferring a gorgeous song

Farewell or hello?

 Elegant gestures 

Poppies open - turn sunward

A bee stops to drink

 I am bound for home

Closer to the beginning

Just beyond the hill

Shall she hide her fears

On the highest closet shelf

Behind doubt and pain

After their lessons

Four boys meet in the plaza

To spin merry tops

New combinations

Notes played as never again

Thelonius Monk

a midnight terror

the sheet creased from the clenching

tears on the pillow

A surrounding heat

 The dog goes under the shed

Cicadas clicking

 I laugh at beauty

And its absurd miracles

Even as they die

 None can make true peace

Who do not hold it in heart

With enough to share

 Praise for the rotting

The bountiful detritus

Nourishment for more

Still shadows bereaved

Hats removed -  something spoken

Leaves fall on the grave

All the days holy

I will do without prelates

Birds lead my worship

 Colors bloom and fade

Greenness stays with conviction

The roots always fast

 if i were a law

i would want to be repealed

or broken at least

 Poems in the air

You can catch them in the breeze

Lest they drift away

 i try to describe

one particular moment

that only i know

 Now and tomorrow 

Something always happens next

Answers then questions 

 Quail in the hollow

Deciding on this year’s nest

In bursage perhaps 

 

 The anti-poet

 Free-swinging abomunist

Affronts everything

 A xeric winter

Incomplete in its essence

Slackens into spring

 Unlike the pebbles

A blue bit of polished glass

Once a jar of grog

 Pictures of lovers

She deleted all of them

But could not forget

 Morning air alive

The mockingbird’s rhapsody 

Carry on maestro!

 A wearied pilgrim

The innkeeper’s wife brews tea

Boots dry at the hearth

 The light ahead fades

The road behind overgrown

Each stride beloved

 The fugitive dreams

At large in regions of sleep

Escape forever

 Life of the story

The book starts when you close it

Not in the reading

Morning tide withdraws

Otters lounge in the kelp bed

A shorebird turns stones

 How can those with least

Cause fear in those who have most 

Which the greater threat?

Cranes are on the fly

As the couriers of spring

Headed certainly

 

To be truly blessed

One ought to have a garden

Holy with color

 

Deep ancestral drums

Elders sing of three sisters 

Hoop dancers become 

 The vespers service

Faithful in pews hear the call

Coyotes crying

 I could fill volumes

With all that I do not know

Of love and dying

 Look into my heart

It’s open - unprotected

Do you see yourself

Pure dancing passion

A bee has unbounded faith

Innate piety

 The mutable dawn

An artful sun paints the clouds

Each brushstroke unique

 Have we forgotten

The white columns of Athens

And the Republic?

 The cold and huddled

Those who cannot find the sky

Hope only for food

 By all the accounts

The void amounts to nothing 

Without everything

 Dry weeds - useful twigs

Bits of down -  a scrap of cloth

The wren’s nest of dross

Vanity’s folly

True esteem heeds no command

Praise follows virtue

 The puppy abed

At peace and warm from the sleep

Just barely breathing

 Unforgiving surf

A cypress bends from the wind

The pelican dives

 Everything we have

Comes from the same fiery source

All was once molten

On a placid pond

 An insect casts its shadow

Then it flew away

 An Ithican queen

Dressed in linen and despair

Who will string the bow?

 I sing of the thaw

Of the cracking and melting

From ice to liquid

 The politician

Just tripped over his own words

With no place to land

When fear breeds anger

 And anger festers to hate

Then domination

 A bitter morning

He didn’t know he would die

And rise in honor

 When the seen is blurred

And all is refutable

What space left for truth?

 The Tragedy of Alex Pretti

Vengeful Achilles 

Dragged fearless Hector’s body

For all Troy to weep

 A tender ratoon 

Betokens a fresh issue 

New life from a stalk

 Who would count the blooms

Or find one best of the rest

Each makes others glow

 Lucre means little

In the company of stars

As the space expands

 Colors in the wind

Headed west on the ridgeline 

Poppies on my right

60 Years Ago in America

 Instead of sharing

City swimming pools were drained

Then filled with hatred

 Leaping limb to limb

Rascals - rogues - and scallywags 

Squirrels in springtime!

 In my faded hat

And boots dusted from the miles

On another trek

 Stormy Saturday

Thunder and white hot lightning

Music on the porch

 Decency dispatched

The men in masks are restless

Justice left to bleed

It needn't be hard 

Necessity is simple

Love can make it so

 There's another meal

Buried out back in the yard

The dog will know where

 Night sky infested

Abuzz with perilous force  

Mosquitos and drones

 

The heliotrope

Frail and subtly purple

In love with the sun

 I found these poems

And thought I would pass them on

To those who enjoy

 The call and response

About labor and loss and love

Of rhythm and hope

 What happens in night 

Cannot be explained by day

Secrets in the dark

 What do you see in smoke

Timber - grass - dissonant dreams

Energy released?

 By what sovereign force

With what imperial will

Can one require faith

 A covey of quail

Perpetually hungry

Bobbing and pecking

In the tides of time

 There must be love in justice

Grace in our resolve

 When we are apart

Find me in clouds and gardens

Hear me in bird songs

 Winter quiescense

Springtime anticipation

Summer jubilee

 Graceful and unique

A soft shroud befalls me

She is the new snow

 Never by ourselves

Our ancestors are with us

In our flesh - our souls

2025

 A time unprecedented 

Kakistocracy 

I beseech myself

Favor living over life

Being more than been

 On the longest nights

Light the hours with candles

Hopeful white tapers

 The landscape of years

Deeper where the water goes

Beckoned by the seas

The Godess Selene

 Rides her glowing chariot

Across the night's vault

Why is this our choice

More of hawks than harvests

More power than grace

 Gifts of December

Iciles on the willow 

Yuletime's welcome hearth

This holiday eve

Follow the snowy foot tracks

To family waiting

 What place do we have

In the family of beasts

Not what we assume

 The day chuffs and stamps

Nostrils steaming in the dawn

Eager - unbridled

 Proper and earnest

The portly quail skedaddle

Quick aristocrats 

Take in this blue day

 Whoever will walk with me

There’s place at my side

 No matter the draft

Leave the door of chance ajar

Kismet may slip in

Obliged to follow

 This long familiar shadow

Away from the sun

 The air departed

A grey vacancy of grief

How can stars still shine

 Somewhere in stillness

See beyond the visible

Listen to silence

 Made ever smaller

A raindrop falls on  a leaf

Parts into many

 For pure poetry

The sinuous swim of fish

Writes finer than words

 Perching on the rocks

The seabird opens it wings

And lets the wind work

Feel it in your heart

In the rain - the trembling leaf

Rhythm everywhere

 Farewell to autumn

The hoary beast of winter

Steals down from the north

 With youth departed

Can some wisdom prove enough

To expect the best

 A holiday tree

Arrayed with berries and stars

Dusted with new snow

 Can you see the calm

On the far side of the storm

Fair seas and still skies

Could we purely sense

Could we surely smell and hear

 As animals do

Did something happen

To him when he was still young

To cause such anger

 Star-lit and moonfull

Gaze with me in the marvel 

The night sky shining

 Here’s a suggestion 

To advance the human race

Try to slow it down

The morning meadow

Mist rising from the flowers 

A doe and her fawns

 After my last breath

Do not lay flowers for me

Leave them in the wild

Swollen from the rains 

The satisfied saguaro 

A true thanksgiving 

A rare day distilled

Served over the winter's ice

Almost to the brim

 When you pull a thread

It might be the only seam

That comes unfastened

 Discount the answers

What would complete the questions?

The untold will tell

Concealed in the gray

Every storm has a  rainbow

Wanting for sunlight

 no one sleeps alone

the visitors in our dreams

are what we have known

Speaking with silence

Seasons expressed in tree rings

History of rain

 A life of moments

Some that will be remembered

Far into the past

 To what do you bow?

I to the wind - rain - birdsongs

All that is graceful

Patience rewarded 

Replenished by Autumn rain

A grateful garden

 A coastal cottage

Thick Scottish stew for supper

Sea-winds howl outside

 High on the mountain

The first storm of the winter

Woods made dark and white

 Knit with Irish wool

Buttons of many colors

A wee lad’s sweater

 Higher than the pines

Seven crows for company

Where the wind flies free

 In whatever voice

We all desire to be heard

And then understood 

Facing to the wind

I'll be searching from the cliffs

For sun on the sails

Delusive prattle

Misshapen politicians

Talking to themselves

 When she smiles and laughs

It warms and illuminates

Constant as the sun

 I lounge and linger

Seduced by the grog of the day

Halcyon - in peace

Storms will come and pass

Lashing us with pure fury

For them be grateful

 What country of worth

Without native rebellion

Can think itself whole?

 Listen carefully

Everything has its own voice

Rocks - trees - and the sea

 The morning still dim

A lone mockingbird calls first

The smell of coffee 

 I passed a woman

Who chose to walk the same trail

Strangers no longer

 Gray and cold to touch

Scattered by the wind and lost

Ashes of her love

 Tragedy of fear

There are those who die while young

But live to old age

 Lilac and jasmine

The scent of mother’s garden

Lingers from my youth

Flour dusting her hair 

She kneaded love in the dough

And set it to rise

 What chances between

Can we say more than we know?

Intangible grasp

 In a muted room

She lingers at the window

Envying the light

A rotted pumpkin

Collapsing from its spoilage

Grist for history

 After All Hallows

Porches dark - candles burnt down

The spirits linger

 It’s Halloween eve

The original tricksters

Howl in the desert

Scintillating leaves

Sunlit Mexican village

The Monarchs return

 When it all goes wrong

That is when adventure starts

Raw and unforeseen

the whorl of colors 

summoning the revenants 

families rejoined