WINTER BLOSSOM

I am in a nursery

surrounded by

plants, trees and vines.

Winter blossoms.

I am waiting

for a poem

to find me

in this Garden

of Eden

in my neighborhood.

But what comes

is the light

and wind—the rapture 

of so many shades

of green, so many

translucent leaves

dancing against

an azure sky.

Maybe this is all

a poem is:

sunlight and leaves, 
a breeze,

swimming in
an infinity of blue.

THE TRUTH

Don’t dress it up

in a bear skin coat,

galoshes. Strap it into  

a corset or chaps.

No special garb’s

required. It wants only

to be wading in

a lagoon buck naked

at night, clothes strewn

about the bank.

To be swaddled 

in alabaster waters 

and draped in silver

light. Wading until 

the moon’s milky image
and the body are one.

DOG WHISTLE

We are all waiting, more or less,

for the day when the gig is up,

and our cover’s blown–along with

the proverbial whistle: when we are

found out for being the frauds

we think we are.

That we are nothing more than

ne’er-do-wells is an insidious soundtrack

that plays like a high-pitched whine

almost imperceptibly in our minds.

The music's shrill messages is:

we are not and never will be good enough. 

What we listen to, and yes,

silently tell ourselves,

can become our masters,

if we’re not careful.

And, if we believe everything we hear,

we are no better than

the dog that gnaws the bone.

But what this pooch doesn’t know,

because it’s too busy being obedient,

is that the limb it's noshing on is its own.

DISAPPEARING INK

Emotions...we feel them

and yet we wonder

is their signature real

or just the handiwork

of our imagination.

The need to be needed

wanted, loved

is so strong

that we can easily

tell ourselves

their ink 

is indelible

as it's drying

when it's actually 

disappearing before 

our desiring eye.

FLORILEGIUM FOR THE FUTURE

I want my days

to be like gardens

where I collect cuttings

for lithographs

I will make.

When I am gone

and in the ground,

please, now and then,

open the book

of botanicals

I’ve left behind.

Leaf through it.

Share it with a friend,
a stranger,
and remember me.

FINGERPRINTS

In the clouds,

the surf and sand,

the driftwood

along the shoreline,

the flight

of low flying gulls,

the wind in the shorepine

and beachgrass,

the rain streaking 

across the windowpane.

Pause long enough

to see 

the pattern

each is tracing.

Then look inside.

Find the joy and gratitude

life's bestowed

upon you.

God's fingerprints

are on everything.

THE ROPE

What I hold on to

that keeps me climbing,

prevents me from falling,

and leaves me dangling

somewhere in between.

Taught attention.

A false sense of

discipline.

The grip I bring

to anything

I grasp at.

The braid and strand.

 The binding 

that tethers will

to way—

twists obstinance 
into being.

Cordage
made of fear.

The hauling and the lifting.
The busywork
that distracts and ensnares,
and, for the life of me, 
I can't let go of.

BRETHREN

An oddity of nature.

Standing in a stand of giants.

Frosted in an unreal glow, a dull glaze

that could be faux snow

or sunlight’s dappled brushwork,

but is not. An albino

redwood, a dwarf tree,

is what’s there—a startling 

anomaly in this forest.

Does it think: I am not

like the others,

grand and evergreen?

It does not.

It is simply a tree among trees.

A brother among brethren.

Nature has so much to teach us
about how to be with ourselves
and our own kind.

MUSK

Story permeates our beings,

our very bodies.

In other words: how we

hold and carry ourselves

in the world

is no small matter.

What we tell ourselves

about ourselves

is an attitude, an air  

we wear like a musk.

It is in us, on us, and all around us.

It perfumes everything and everyone

we come close to.

It is how we attract what we attract

and repel what we repel.

If we remain suffused

in our state of nonchalance

we might as well go about our business

like skunks in the night,

scavenging for our next meager meal,

while the dark keeps getting darker.