THE GASP

The whole story held its breath

when the deer struck the earth

with its hoof. The listener 

at the door next door  

wept when a young beauty 

couldn’t wake her lover 

with wailings and musky tears. 

Lonely dieties, lit by lightning, 

no longer remember

a midnight tundra or a bush 

in thought. Turn me into 

a lamp, why don’t you! Steal

my light from the sun.

My forgotten footprints

are a mimicry of invisibility 

that will bluster any moonlit suitor.

Hide time in hidden hibernations,

under animal skin. Gambol with

my grief at the edges 

of adoration. Rupture 

the consequential into new 

constellations. Wriggle metaphor 

into the rhythms of startled frost.

Forget all my nephew’s names,

so that your velvet nuzzle will

cause my plumage to enfold

all the directions 

before catching fire.

IN SEASON

I am putting down

what I've been carrying.

I am letting the edges 

of my being relax, soften.

I am holding on to nothing.

I am letting last year's learning

dissolve into knowing.

I am letting seeking seep into being.

I am letting doubt decompose into trust.

I am allowing innocence to seed into maturity.

I am letting numbness winter it way to compassion.

I am shedding resistance.

I am pruning myself back. 

I am going dormant.

It takes all the seasons to become bare.

It takes opening to loss, to grief

to fully feel all the emotions

that live inside the terrain

of what it means to be human.

I am taking this season

to remember who I am again.

SETTLED

We land

where we land.

Nature's miscellany

does also.

But when it does

it is free

of complaint

or regret. It,

unlike us,

will just sit

settled and glowing

in the embrace

of a sunny

winter's day.

INTENTION

Tug on the thorn
and its spell

is cast.
The rose will

catch fire
but the blossom 

won't burn.
The flames

are now
the flower.

STAIRCASE

limbless

it will

still wind

its way

from winter

into spring

THE CREATURE’S KISS

If your ship runs aground 

in the arctic and the ice 

holds it there for days—

each its own island 

of eternity—and life, after all 

its myriad explorations, seems 

a wreckage you can’t escape

anymore, don’t be surprised

if the only thing

that can save you 

from a deeper desolation

comes lurching out of

the frozen frontier

as an impossibility

that you never expected

would find you, 

much less be the one 

chasing you down.

Let’s call it, forgiveness.

When it comes, welcome it 

as your lost progeny.

Let it kiss you— 

with its wounded face 

and with tears in its eyes— 

on the forehead

in the captain’s cabin.

Let it give you the blessing 

you couldn’t give yourself.

May its unlikely arrival be

the love that turns 

the wreck around,

so all your haunted expeditions

can come to an end

and you can sail 

into the sunrise

finally and safely home.

*Inspired by Guillermo del Toro's film, Frankenstein

CARING TO KINDLE*

So much is disappearing

from this world:

the condor, the ice-caps, 

the honey bees.

Let’s not erase 

anything else, please —

especially from the minds 

and mouths of our children.

Let’s not replace 

acorn or beech,

newt, otter, or willow

in their miniature dictionaries

with words like 

blog, chatroom, or voicemail. 

As long as future generations

can sound out

lark, mistletoe 

or nectar and know 

what they are invoking,

we will continue to kindle

our connection with 

the land, the sea, 

and the symphonies swelling 

in the ever expanding cosmos.

When we remember

the rhythm and susurrations 

of the swift 

and the swallowtail,

and even the whisper 

of a breeze through lichen

by simply saying 

their names plainly,

we reclaim the song 

of our souls also

and live them as hymns 

sung out loud.

*Inspired by Francis Weller’s essay, 

Approaching Geologic Speed