’54 Chevy

It was faded blue with a white top.  What I remember most are trips

out West taken most every summer.  That car took us to Yellowstone,

Grand Tetons, Bryce’s Canyon, Wind Rivers and to New England

for the Presidential Range in New Hampshire.  Dad built storage boxes

to fit in the back to carry all our camping gear: tent, sleeping bags, utensils. 

My brother and I sat in the back doing the usual brother/sister stuff:

“Mom, he’s on my side of the seat!” and “When will we get there?”

Dad took care of that car: changed the oil, checked the timing,

gapped the new spark plugs.  We had to get a new car for our new hobby:

horses. The old Chevy just couldn’t pull a trailer.   I don’t remember

what happened to the old car, just that another Chevy replaced it. 

I’ve had several cars since, two Vegas, three Subarus, and a Nissan truck.

Some of those cars had lots of miles on them but none has ever taken

me as far as that old Chevy.

                                                                                    Muddy River Poetry Review

                                                                                    Spring 2020

Top of the Bridge

I climb onto the bridge’s railing,

toss your name into the wind

but it revisits me like the swallow. 

I think I have captured you but

then you shift away like the fog

underneath the bridge. 

The mist net will not catch you.

I watch you float down the river.

I think I am done with your memory.

But I am not.  Grayness mists

around me.  I shiver in the dampness.

I will forever be cold.

                                                                                    Poetica Review  spr 2020

Looking into Silence

The quiet of the house when the dog

is gone rings undisturbed.  Wind

purring through the pines is another quiet.

So is the crunch of a horse’s hooves

in sere autumn leaves.  Evening has its

own calm as night bugs begin their chants.

Perhaps the quietest is snow sifting through

branches, settling on winter’s Little Bluestem. 

The silence of a closing door.

                                                                        Poetica Review  spr 2020

Ocean Scape

I ponder despair and sorrow; wonder the degree

of difference as I watch the waves slap the shore.

Is despair the failure to find the perfect sand dollar

or sorrow the cry of a child when the ocean

takes its sandcastle back to the sea.  Or is despair

the undertow pulling me out to the point of no return.

Morning’s Quiet Times

In the quiet of the morning, I can hear

the dew falling from the leaves; the wind flow

through the blue jay’s wings.  Not even a breeze talks

in the woods; a skink rustles through dry grass.

The forest so still I can hear rain walking

through the trees.  When snow caresses the ground,

the earth is silent.

The quiet between ocean waves:

time for one lone thought.

                                                            Peregrine

                                                            April 2017

Wounds          

Fallen needles cover the ground

until the harvester begins to slash

through high grade pines.

Its dripping oil stains a rainbow

in the puddles as it bunks the dead

for the log loader. Tires slice

the red clay that runs like blood. 

Logging trucks chew up the entrance,

leaving a ragged wound. Rumbling

to the sawmill, they drag red

down the highway.

Finally, silence is the only noise

that falls. The dried ruts of darkened

blood are scattered in what is left. 

Spring, little blue stem begins to scab

over wounds, softens the landscape

followed by thin pines reaching for the sky

like skin healing over the cut. 

Hiding in Ice

I would like to hide from the world;

the ice mansion of Dr. Zhivago.

only one white road in and out.

In winter, flames rainbow the icicles.

A small room — walnut table and chair—

used envelopes for starting poems.

In spring, lingering smell of ashes.

Gnashing of ice floes in the river.

Summer would bring nesting

Snowy owls and haunting loons.

Autumn and the dying sun creep up on me.

The Sun Rises and Sets To Its Own Time

We have stopped saving daylight.

The dark comes earlier,

more time to descend into my icy hole. 

Winter scrapes away the sun, buries

the summer’s green in snow,

freezes warm light into the cold

of the night. The sun’s rays are short,

they barely penetrate the pitch.

I curl up in the darkness and cold

until we begin to save next year’s daylight.

                                                The Raven’s Perch

The Sun Rises and Sets To Its Own Time

We have stopped saving daylight.

The dark comes earlier,

more time to descend into my icy hole. 

Winter scrapes away the sun, buries

the summer’s green in snow,

freezes warm light into the cold

of the night. The sun’s rays are short,

they barely penetrate the pitch.

I curl up in the darkness and cold

until we begin to save next year’s daylight.

                                                The Raven’s Perch

                                                July 2017

                                                July 2017

Walking Into the Sea

High tide erases foot prints

from the gray sand.  I know

they are yours.  You left

at low tide before the sun

painted the clouds pink.

Now, I sit above the tidal line,

watch a coquina feed,

washed up into the open,

it vanishes as the wave recedes

until eaten by the willet

that dug into its burrow.

Pushing past the breakers

that shove me into the sand,

the undertow swallows me.

Salt water stings my lungs,

I don’t struggle against

the waves’ suction.

I invite the shark

to return my blood

to the sea.

                                                                        Crosswinds poetry Journal

Walking Into the Sea

High tide erases foot prints

from the gray sand.  I know

they are yours.  You left

at low tide before the sun

painted the clouds pink.

Now, I sit above the tidal line,

watch a coquina feed,

washed up into the open,

it vanishes as the wave recedes

until eaten by the willet

that dug into its burrow.

Pushing past the breakers

that shove me into the sand,

the undertow swallows me.

Salt water stings my lungs,

I don’t struggle against

the waves’ suction.

I invite the shark

to return my blood

to the sea.

                                                                        Crosswinds poetry Journal

                                                                        Spring 2018

                                                                        Spring 2018

Walking Into the Sea

High tide erases foot prints

from the gray sand.  I know

they are yours.  You left

at low tide before the sun

painted the clouds pink.

Now, I sit above the tidal line,

watch a coquina feed,

washed up into the open,

it vanishes as the wave recedes

until eaten by the willet

that dug into its burrow.

Pushing past the breakers

that shove me into the sand,

the undertow swallows me.

Salt water stings my lungs,

I don’t struggle against

the waves’ suction.

I invite the shark

to return my blood

to the sea.

                                                                        Crosswinds poetry Journal

                                                                        Spring 2018

                                                                        Spring 2018

Yellow

Fireflies hide on stems

of unmown grass,

wait for dusk.  The falling sun

pulls them up.  Five, six, ten lift

themselves three,

four, twelve feet into the trees. 

Their abdomens flash

yellow, their wings blur.

In the still morning, tiger

swallowtails drop from underneath

green leaves.  They tease nectar

from the buddlea. Unheard,

their wings flutter as they

to wander. Like boxers, two spar

upward.  Like Japanese

lanterns, ten now twenty

hang from purple flowers.

                                                                        rosette maleficarum

                                                                        spring 2018