Shifting Sands

Huckleberries and fat salal. Their forests, their lakes are connected by rolling sky, and we hear the surf sounding so much larger than what we thought.

Almost August

Even though the swale is green mush in places, I walk, switch on the pump. Roses are still alive and the Mirabelles--orange droops. Blackberries out where the jays sit. Bluebirds. Other birds getting to the feeder. I know all the lumps in the dry lawn, blind.

Round and Round

The day is round. Last night, shadows waited at the back door to the grass, moving, fluttering. The young trees. It was just like her and I thought I saw her sitting there like she always did. It was her. Why do I still refuse to let her in? Would she mess up my life? Is this what is so frightening? Cows breathing in the field, sniffing like wolves. It thought they were deer. The old folks were so weary and freaked last week. This one's going better than expected. Calculate it. What else could happen in ninety degree heat? The garden holds itself, only shares its crackling.

Holding Night, Meeting Day

Both arms occupied and which one do I let go into the other? Night is my friend, moon, no shadows around the bouquet. Sound of midnight's promise, long whistles lasting into the past, why write it down? The fruit trees are still so loaded. The shame of waste. The ecstasy. Each moment passing, ticking by.

Reindeer Beards

I never heard that much about them but now I know a whole lot more. Tiny houses. That's another thing, entirely, appearing larger than our apartment pressing against the butte, just down a ways from the columns and across from the train if you could go directly but now there's that fence and it is impossible to just make your sweet way straight to the station.

My Crazy Straw

My crazy straw was a Gordian knot twisting towards the sunrise of my life and into the inner circle of my family. Sipping elixirs made from various powders, I was wise to the fact that the shape came undone only with lots of give, lots of loosening. The main problem. Tina thought these were the best presents. I could not disagree. The twists and turns were impossible to follow. Our moves from Missouri, Nome, Schurz, Reno, Missoula, Tettnang, Polson, Roseburg, Sutherlin. Those we left behind kept on living.

In The Land Of The Crazy Straws

Mine curled round in two loops. Tina got the zig-zag and Corine's was a heart. All were striped and looked like candy. For once, nobody was jealous . The crazy straws made root beer taste like water, that's how long it took to taste something and Tina made hers into a bracelet and then we were chaining ourselves to this newest idea.

More About The Trail

I had bags but now I have a backpack joining the thousands up and down the Butte only a thin screen of blackberries between us at night on their cell phones having conversations We thought it was the radio announcing classical but it is them speaking

This Summer

My assignments have been lost and what is it like? They wait around the bend in the trail. I will catch up to what happened if it the last thing I do, as blackberries drop off their vines and into my mouth because that's how.

A Clue: The Deer

Last summer I was supposed to be doing a bunch of assignments while working in the Depot House. Mostly, I'd find myself staring out the window trying to see the waves in the glass. When would I get around to the work I was supposed to begin? I saw the deer family picking their way down from the bench and onto the lawn. I was inside and still had no clue about how things were going. What were my daydreams there? I cannot recall, not for the life of me.

The Falls

The trail went over the bridge and they had to pay a toll to get over it. Once on the river, there was no way to get lost. He walked right up to the edge just like the B.L.M. bosses. I hung back because of my Crocs and how flimsy they are on the undersides, their soles, I mean without trying to be trendy but impossibly so looking back, I could've used more syllables.

At The Ready

Unloading the Mirabelles was not too hard-- their trees so full-- hours staring at the swirl steaming, stirring it up every now and then, scared if it would boil over onto the clean parts of the stove-- while I thought of my parents, so young and always ready to go fishing, camping, and dancing fifty years ago, and now our talking.

Stranger Not Strange

I remember them because of their parkas, their outlines and postures. Their temples. The way they'd sit on the snow machines, straight ahead, looking right, then left. That was their group. St. Lawrence Island may be just a memory. The dog team harnessed, ready to go. Shumagin prancing, snapping the air then howling at the siren every noontime back when global warming wasn't even an idea. in the Pacific theater. The judge married a couple on the beach, finally, having moved away from the rotting walrus and the flies.

To Be

The garden is well under way. Great carpets of hay out back in the field. Huge jelly rolls. Houses of no consequence. Plywood and dangling wires. Mountains beginning their climb. All is quiet before checking on the fruit, forgetting, also missing the night, its cool vacancy.

Sub Rosa

Look at the lake, of the world all these thousands of years. Bucket list? A blank. No need to have a list, the bucket so leaky. Does this coincide with life? What else does this match in history?

Say It

If I could say it I would say it. If I could live it I would tell you. There are some things to say, instead. My only problem was not unique. I didn't have the problem but did not know this until much later. This became something else. The gift was not as I thought. Is it too late?

How America Survives

Spare change spent spare change is the rent. The rant spent. Days pass as change held captive in pockets and trigger-happy fingers.

Taking Matters Into Consideration

You thought it was over there, not over here now people, looking the same against buildings urban squeeze so much like home, the killing corridors blank, with people. You pick them off one by one. Just as you were taught so well to do only the other day didn't they mention the easing back in, reintegrating home and to regular life where you know the rules aren't so clear so you make your own, make them up to be exactly knowing what is true in the combat zone: killing and killed.

Set Down A Cup Of Tea

Place our spoons next to the honey next to flat July. The fair is crowded and muddy beside the river let me go there. It is costly. We cannot waste a drop.

Said To The Road

We want the road to change showing the world we are the road you are driving on, the path to kill until every one of us will not stand any more injustice, will need to be shot by you and the other cars moving again.

Missing Link

I could visit the Rattlesnake again, look at wildflowers missed last time and then bless myself in the icy creek, dreaming of our horse and how we tried and tried to tame her. The alternative would be the Coast-- a lot closer, any way you slice it.

Winter Is

They say time stands still there. Long enough for memory to thaw. The fruit is ripe. I will need parts of it because I cannot take my favorite tree with me such a long way. They say.

That's When

I remembered the thing about how to get rid of it. It had been so long since I had such a rash. I was caught off guard, unprepared for the furious itching it brought on, all because of those leaves of three. They will die down by Autumn. I remember some facts about this situation. Hanging on with my heart has never been the cure. The archaeologists were more practical. They said to ignore the directions on the bottle. Apply it dry and let it soak in. Not a cold shower, but hot as you can possibly stand. Fingernails scrubbing, breaking the skin. Then calamine, calamine!

Incorporated

We loved the town but could not find it underneath all that fur. It was said to be two blocks away past the liquor store and just by the lockers. I knew where it was in my heart. Those spaces between buildings too narrow for anyone or anything else but splinters of lumber and tar paper scraps. The town briefly visited during parades over too soon with too much military dominating Main. Kids tolerating the wait dressed as pioneers and Okies planning their own future killings in line for free ice cream.

View From Inside

This one had windows looking out over innocent lawns, old grass. An amazing pasture for large personalities. Time stood still there. The call a large triangle last seen dangling from the back of my chuck wagon still ringing out across the county.

Butterfly Song

Flower told me what to say so I said it and nothing can be taken back now so live your marathon life and tell me what it is like at the finish, if it is cool and green as the others said along the way because they passed that on and I believed them but now just between us two there is something they were describing.

What Was Said

To the flower or I mean about the flower I thought was meant for me, wanted it to be. So maybe it was, afterall, in that dream poetry way that is so pointed. Now it seems it maybe was my mistake, reading into things too much as I tend to do, in the wilderness or at least close where the signage says you are here.