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

HORSESHOES*

   in memory of

Andrea Gibson

Hanging
heavy 

on a
bone-thin

 limb
are 

six rusted
horseshoes.

Such a strange
 bracelet

for a season
so biting.

Surely, 
the first shoe 

speaks, 
incants 

on behalf
of the rest

when

 it announces 

its queer

 pronouncement of
 
 O-D  L-U-C-K
in bold 

raised 

letters, 

while the G and O 

of good 

are wholly 

hidden 

behind 

the brittlest

branch of all,
that could easily

be hope.
But maybe

it’s not 
a winter twig

obscuring the go

in good,

 but instead 

a pinky-like promise 

fingering 

its way

ever 

deeper 

into the crisp 

sky-blue grip

of the brightening 
light of day.  

*Inspired by the documentary, 

Come See Me in the Good Light

THE SHAPE OF LIFE 

Any moment now

the fruit, plump

ready and ripe,

will fall from

it flimsy perch.

Before it does,

as dusk begins

to dust the valley

behind it 

with darkness,

let’s say thank you

to its simple roundness,

its rustic glow and 

the abundance it balances

on gravity’s back

as if it were 

our own rich life

we were thanking.

And then…let’s let

the sweetness

of this gratitude

allow us 

to suddenly see,

for the first time

perhaps in a long time,

our life as anima mundi, 

an expression of the world’s soul, 

the cosmic force

that is present 

in all nature.

Finally, let’s let the mystery 

and revelation of this recognition 

be the sweet spot in the orchard 

of our seeing and being today.