OPERA IN THE AFTERNOON

Birdseed

spilling

from the 

feeder.

Finches and

tufted titmouse

fluttering

and chirping

in between

grubbings.

Branches, leaves

gusting

in the aria 

of the wind.

A chime tolling

Amazing Grace.

ON THE TRAIL

a wind coming up 

from the valley

is not a wind 

until it meets hikers

on the ridge, rattles their bones

and one then says:

the wind is

seminal today

in that moment 

air is Wind:

an event 

to be reckoned with

because someone

squalled it was so

THE PROJECTIONIST

The lights dim

in the empty auditorium.

The beam flickers through

the tiny booth window.

The images dance across 

the silver screen.

In a dark cramped corner

the projectionist thinks, Who am I

if there is no one under

the spell I am casting?

ARCHEOLOGY 

 

The tools are intricate,

delicate, made for dusting—

 

for uncovering

the broken pieces

 

that have been buried

under the weight of the past

 

for so long. With care 

and precision the vase 

 

will take its shape again—

assembled from the echoes

 

of the breakage, and is

stronger because of it.

HOME

 

I have an appetite in me

that moves like a fish—

 

a salmon swimming

upstream to spawn.

 

The barbed worm, glinting

in the fierce current, is still.

 

The Chinook sees it,

catches itself

 

on the alluring lure.

I wish the bait and the bite

 

weren’t a part of

this long journey home.

THE EARS OF ABSENCE

 

I find myself talking to a ghost these days—

to an absence that can’t hear me.

 

Even when it had the ears to hear, listening

wasn’t something its body could easily manage.

 

I knew this then 

and I know this now.

 

So why am I still trying to bend the ear of absence 

when I know its deafness is deafening?

 

Because the shovel I can’t put down thinks

it's filling a hole when it's tirelessly digging one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 WHAT’S THE ROCK?

 

Not the bubbling up

of magma

from the earth’s core

that cools on the surface.

Not igneous.

Not granite.

Not quartz.

 

Not found in the continental crust.

In mountains and rivers.

In monuments.

Not this.

 

It’s something else.

Something unseen

that I carry and have

from my origin.

 

A thing made of imperfections.

A poker chip in my back pocket

from a bad gamble.

A halitosis of the heart.

 

It lives inside

everything I do

and how I do it.

Like fear.

Like pride.

Self-pity.

 

It is something I must drop

like a rock, but can’t.

Not when my will is in the way

of my willingness.

 

It is a weight that only

the pulleys and practice of prayer

can lift and relieve.

 

And they will

once I learn to let go.