Twirly Girl

I questioned a little girl,

 "Do you think

 in straight lines or circles?" 

With hardly a pause 

she answered,

  "Usually it comes

out all twirly."

I silently applauded

as an envious, aching tear 

dripped down my face. 

As a child, I didn’t know 

I had options for answers

other than A or B. 

But then again, 

nobody ever asked. 

Hearts on a Stem

I understand now

how Robert Farrar Capon 

wrote an entire chapter

about one brown onion.

Likewise, a cursed, 

common weed 

captivated me 

for hours. 

Sunlight 

shoots through

pregnant parchment 

sillouetting 

ripe bellies 

bursting with seeds. 

Oh, the minutiae of hearts -- 

veins, wrinkled chambers 

and a breaking line 

down the center 

where love spills out -- 

unlocking the gates of Eden. 

Dry Bones of a Ghost Town

I've been traveling through some rough patches of pioneer country in Utah and Idaho. I have a new respect and admiration for those tough, courageous souls seeking a better country. 

When I returned to my lush green garden and yard it looked bawdy and almost indecently flamboyant compared to the delicate and fragile beauty of desert wildflowers. Our Pacific Northwest blinks and shouts its selfie - a green springtime braggadocio - embarrassingly unapologetic for the abundant rain that causes it. 

Plein Air Artist at Greenlake

Westport, Washington Beach

Sand dollars money the beach

while clam diggers watch 

sandpipers practice murmerating

on the sand before they

perform the same 

choreography in the air.  

Christianson's Nursery, La Conner Washington

This is one of most aesthetically pleasing places to visit in the Skagit Valley. There are several boot scrapers scattered about to rid yourself of any remaining bits of heavy, caked on winter left clinging to your boots, weighing you down.