Prayer For Moving To A New Town

At fifty seven years old
I look back at all the botched
relationships I'm partially responsible
for, and weep.

It makes me treasure the ones
who've stood by all the high maintenance
and high passions with durable
endurance.

These are strange years -
such unfamiliar social
cultures we're living through.

I miss the old family gatherings when
everyone held an instrument
or used their voice to sing or
storytell.

The laughter from the retold
and the tears from sad lyrics handed down
gave me security as I fell asleep
wrapped up in soft
murmurs.

I miss crowded homes with
tables heavy with
sustenance and comfort.

I miss simple. I miss old fashioned fun.

I'm lonely, but not bored,
nor uncomfortable being alone.
They say creative ones are
never bored - but where
is the companionship
that the internet can't
supply? Skin to touch and
eyes to look into? Contagious
smiles to reflect? Where do I find
the other lonely ones?

Where do I find friendship
if I am tired of sitting in
a pew looking at the back
of people's heads - and bars
and clubs don't excite me ?

New town, please
utilize what I have to offer -
find me a few good friends
who might enjoy someone
who is still learning how to
be a friend?

New town, keep me from winter
kill. I beg you, please allow spring
to resurrect me tender and green.
Let me take root in a wild,
riotous border - bursting with color
and welcoming scent.

Rain

Every fall 

I try to change

my mind about

rain - talking myself 

out of dread 

and reframing it 

as being a desirable thing

to celebrate and relish. 

An annual epiphany 

I must revisit often -

since I live in the Pacific

Northwest close to a Rain 

Forest on an island 

where rain 

happens. 

Water of any kind 

makes me happy. 

Rain is water. 

This equation needs

embossed on my brain. 

I raise my arms to welcome

rain today, tomorrow

and the day after - 

like the mighty cedar

does. 

Pertaining To Coming Home and Moisture

All things estival have come to a swift
end.

Leaves falling crisp in the Rockies
follow me back home to soggy - where
blackbirds hunch shoulder to shoulder
drip, drip on a dripping high wire.

A statuesque blue heron
stands knee deep and still in high tide
blending into slate blue skies.

The inside of my dry, cracked nose welcomes
the drizzle.

I have front row parking
on the ferry. My thirsty skin,
eyes and heart want the windshield
barrier gone - it keeps me from the salt spray.
The freezing wind makes me thankful for it.


Logs float on the chop. I hope to
spot a seal's watchful eyes.

Ahhh ...
the absolute relief of being at one
again with salt water.



**(My friend Susan read this and asked if I'd seen Blue Mind In the Desert Ted Talk by Wallace J. Nichols.) I hadn't. Yet. It is fantastic. I just ordered his book and will find a blue marble to remind me....

Summing It Up

Isak Dinesen begins with "I had a farm in Africa...."

I once had gardens fruiting and flowering, a porch swing, and a beachy home where a selkie could feel perfectly at home whilst land locked.

Now, my love and I come home sweat grimed, looking like coal miners. Some days we speed to work on a boat to another island and pile into a van loaded with sweaty men who know how to work and make road problems vanish. They execute delicate maneuvers with monster machines. Artistic flourishes with dirt, gravel and oil? Yes.

Life is different, inconvenient and awkward now. We are camping out in a teeny-tiny studio. This is what it's come down to. I puzzle over why I'm not completely miserable? Why am I so comfortable?

Maybe it's because the tent out in the yard has been up all summer and occupied with people who want to come visit? Or perhaps it's the porpoises, whales, starfish, and beach glass I find? Or how I'm learning to fish? Or the eagles and blue herons that fly by, curious? Is it Tessa's picturesque garden she shares with me? Maybe it's the smell of salt water coming in on the breeze, or the rhythm of living with the tides?

What will I remember fondly about this year, in ten years? I don't think it was what Isak Dinesen had that made her life story a riveting one, it was everything pulsing around the experience and adventure of that farm in Africa.

Not Wearing A Pink Hat

Uncharacteristically, 

today I listened to 35 minutes 

of what's considered news 

by thousands who tune in. 

Top news? Starburst

has a new package of 

all pink candy.

And a new app called 

Women Interrupted 

was highly recommended

to much applause. 

I confess: Women marching 

in silly pink pussy hats

spewing their own brand of

putrid hate is not silly at all

and makes me embarrassed 

to call myself 

a woman.  

 Does this app 

also track how 

many times women 

interrupt other women

or how many times women

interrupt men? 

The bullied become bullies. 

The tolerant aren't so tolerant. 

Facts are buried. Opinions go

viral in a world turned upside down, 

backwards and inside out.

Earl told us to learn to live with irony.

But I'm losing the hang of it. 

The only thing I can hold on to, 

the only thing familiar, 

the only thing I know any 

more when I see it - 

is love. 

It's still the same 

all over the world -

yesterday,

 today

and forever. 

It never ends. 

Amen.  

After the Snow

I see baby buds strain
against the tension -
shiny, tight, pink skins pursue
growth. Winter's wood resists,
unsure of being split
open like this -

she can't remember
the joyous juices running
warm last spring.

Prayer for Dick Staub

This poem by Mark Nepo, from his book Reduced to Joy - 
is for Dick Staub - who I've always thought of by his real 
name, Richard the Lionhearted. I selfishly pray you regain 
your health, for we can't imagine our world without you in it. 

For Joel at 94

They say that miners in South America
strap small lamps around their chest, that
this works better than the light coming
from the center of your head.

They say the head can be fooled,
but the heart can’t turn without
the body. This makes me think of you
digging your way through your long life,
lighting everything with your heart.

It’s a good way to live. And when we
sit at the end of the day, our hearts
illumine the day and we see each other
in its radiance. I can tell, it reminds you
of many circles you’ve been a part of.
It’s a good way to measure time.

To make our way on Earth
by the light coming from our heart —
This is what you’ve taught us.

Is it any wonder that what you
touch, including us, glows.

Possibilities

Wind is blowing 

up the channel

chasing the fog

and scouring 

the clutter in my 

mind, making room

for probable 

possibles. 

I've Tasted Grace

Savory crusted crumbs
of it still cling to my lips.
Kiss me. It will return
to thee.

Speaking Australian

I'm down the
mountain, down lake
from you this week and
I dream we're rooting.
I end up with
a pash rash
red enough
to scar me. It will
make people
wonder what we've
been up to.

Have I told you lately
that I love you,
farmboy?

For Ben

He says he wants 

to bail out,

leave the village, 

begone -

because he 

doesn't 

fit in. 

I say a hearty, Welcome

to the "fidn't dits!" 

I'm one too, I say 

and tell him 

that if he goes 

I'll miss him. 

So stay, 

I say.

Please 

stay. 

For our young Ben - somewhere on the spectrum - Holden Village 2016 

Touch Me

Belovedness comes my way
via hard hands clasping
my own softer, smaller ones.

Belovedness comes my way
via kisses air blown, thrown,
caught and returned.

Belovedness comes my way
via sparkling eyes lighting up
from across the room.

Belovedness comes my way
via scented, enveloping hugs.

Belovedness comes my way
via lips wrangling kisses and
dancing tongues.

Touch me where belovedness
lives - the warm place we return
to being the beloved again
and again.

Reading With Jan Richardson

Everyone in the room has 

or will experience grief

at some point 

 she promised. 

Her tears did not fall

but a woman's mouth tells all. 

Jan Richardson gave a reading from her forthcoming book, A Cure For Sorrow.  Holden Village - October 2016 

Fresh Aire

It's not sweet floral scents
that send my senses spinning
now. I crave pungent
ones that make me gasp
and wake
up.

I want to be ...

where eucalyptus sheds

where sequoia, bay laurel
and oak are mantled by morning fog

where conifers cast off needles and pinecones

where ferns, bracken, and sorrel edge paths

where crawdads hide in shady creeks

where salt spray and
sand debrides my soul

take me there
to breathe
again.

Slipping

An unfired, dried vase whirls
upon the potter's wheel. Silky,
wet slip spreads slowly up and over
each of her curves -
waist, hips, thighs, breasts.

I blush. I want to
be the vase.

Coffee Mug

Tension by way of pressure
points equaled inside and out
stack clay into a cylinder worthy
of stretching a round silhouette
resembling a wide hipped woman
carrying a belly full of grace

Assuaging Loneliness

Four miles up into the mist
mountaintops tip homage
to their maker. The trail floor
springs back - meeting every
step with years and years
of cushioned forest loam. Ferns,
bracken and berries soften the edge
of the shady path I follow to
Hart Lake. I go by myself -
to see it different. I pray. I sing.
I listen. My heart pounds when
I see signs of a bear who recently
passed through, foraging as he
went. The water falling down
granite walls imbues me with
energy and enthusiasm.
The lake gives me peace like
a much needed transfusion. On
the way back, I stop to eat lunch -
then hitch my hammock between
two trees by Horse Ford and
swing to the rhythm of water
rushing over rocks. It's nice
to be lonely alone.

Wrecked by Raku

A kiln is built

with an arched roof

a chimney hole

a removable door

and a peekaboo

glazed bisque placed

in the preheated oven

turns hot orange -

matching the walls

without melting

the door is removed brick by brick

and long tongs reach for one

piece at a time to bury

in sawdust while a pail

waits to smother flames

one smoking piece at a time is

baptized in a bucket of water -

we gasp as humble clay

surprises us with patches of

unpredictable beauty

George Lowe and Daniele Maeder doing Pottery Vespers - Holden Village 2016 

Coloring Outside the Lines

I heard a story yesterday from a young man whose chorus teacher who told it in class one day. The teacher was this child.

During a kindergarten art session with crayons and a coloring book page and instructions from the teacher to carefully stay within the outline, a child decided with purpose to color beyond the outline. He figured that if he cut it out afterward along the outline he would have a piece filled in perfectly. 

His teacher came by, looked down and saw what looked like a rebellious and deliberate mess. This child deliberately had flouted his instructions. The teacher held it up for the class to see and told the other students that Johnny was disobedient and had colored badly. Don't color your page this way, he said. The entire class laughed nervously. 

Johnny kept silent, but knew in his heart that the teacher couldn't imagine what he knew the finished product could be. He knew he was right. He cut out his picture - pleased by how it turned out. 

I wish every child had the strength to withstand such onslaughts. Most people are crippled for life from these experiences. How many artists could there be in the world with this kind of knowing? 

The Wheel and I

Inexperience begged for
a wheel with years
of practice and mastery

I perch awkwardly
on the bench, settle in -
and breathe in the fact

that a lifetime's longing
is coming to pass
here and now

Looking out the window
hosting red geraniums I see
a deer framed

Elton John sings in the background -
he's the only one to witness
my tears as

I take clay in my hands
and throw it into what I hope
is the center of the wheel

Wet eager hands cover clay
One foot kicks hard to make
the wheel spin silently

Hovering, I press and pull
the lump toward my belly
where butterflies flutter

This moment bends me
into a prayer - one I've
been waiting for so long