We Will Not Be Lost

This morning my mind is as feral as the wind,
thwarted at finding stillness
when there is so much to be done.

My heart will depart at her own volition
and walk nearer to silence,
dismissing the forceful gales of distraction.

This grist of too many thoughts
in a pristine landscape of winter's invitation
to observe the starlit skies
and to wait is a gift.

Love the swirl of blinding ice
the gathers on the juniper branches
and weighs us down with love.

Even in the darkness and chaos of the storm,
we will not be lost.

Holding Their Breath for Words

As if sleeplessness grants some sort of warped prestige
I wobble out of meddlesome blankets, the scaffolding of warmth
when the thermostat plunges from daytime highs
into dreaming lows for slumber

and saving the planet.

In bare feet and my softest red robe
I dare to plough into the traffic of another day
with hot tea, bindled sweet with raw gratuity
and half cream

toward a poem that gathers angels
and senses the world with a heart
drunk with love punch
and hope for something better.

The clear sky and winter stars
call my mind out the kitchen window
where snow and still trees wait
holding their breath for words.

If Today is the Last Day

If today is the last day
to walk by the sea,
to feel the mist
form droplets in my curls
and drip onto my nose

then let this joy flow
as a prayer to the clouds
and to the wind's mother.

If today is the last day
to breathe this cool autumn air
and to feel the waves rush
over my green boots and tumble back
to the source of all water

then let my curious heart beat
like a drum crashing next to the heart
of a lover.

If today is the last day
to hear your voice and the meditation of all souls
at the edge of the earth and sky

then let me raise up my voice
dancing praise and singing
loudly with gulls and pipers
so that it echos
with all the angels I have ever known.

Infinity sounds more beautiful
with the choir humming this last day
of hallelujah.

Turkeys on Patrol

These ten fat turkeys
graze in the gray mist,
kicking up oak leaves,
eating ticks and worms.

Close to the old stone wall at the edge of the field,
they feel the safety of the land;
heavy as the hills.

These ten turkeys
shift and weave in a line
close as soldiers on patrol.
The snow and rain roll off their backs
oblivious to the coming storm
just over the next ridge
of a long winter.

Moving slow as monks
looking for wisdom,
these earthy warriors
click in garbled, low voices,

keep watch while they walk
together.

When the Bottom Fell Out

When the bottom fell out
from under everything,
jolting me from blistered hands
that had hung on to the cold steel rungs
too long,

I crumbled, ruminating on the failure,
befuddled by the opportunity to walk away.

When the bottom fell out
the walls of the well echoed,
bouncing with the sound of fear
and slippery with angry silent cups
of my own darkness and souring cream,

there was never anyone to blame
in this new place.

Now, when the frost is new on the grass
and the flowers wilt after the sun touches them,
it seems too simple to shrug off the end of the long summer
with a sigh and turn my back on the task of another death.

I am still exhausted in my old leather boots and cotton gloves.

but here again, when the bottom fell out,
wings suddenly grew out of a need to fly;

the new bird
pushed out of a nest
that was never meant to hold forever.

Before

Before the addiction,corrosion clicks in the mind.
The heart broadcasts a need to gather everything
like a wandering nun with only her clothes and a bowl
before God evacuates this desperate place of longing.

Before the shelling of thoughts begins,
let the mind rest in this moment.

The heroic Love will keep watch
with his hand on the breathing child within you
as light leaches into the blackness
where only the stars give consolation.

Shine there, in that very instance,
an exhalation,
an annulment of doubt.

Before you lift the thin edge of the glass to your lips,
smile at the warmth that will come home too soon.

Alone in the Last Days of Summer

These angelic days,
where I feel you near me,
ache with August.

Each sunflower
personifies years
of endless summer
and your breath constantly humming
at the base of my mind.

I am wandering again,
solitary as a stone,
in this new path of loving
all the nights.

The texture of another autumn
harangues the heat and is squandered
on copper and gold leaves
plummeting to the ground.

My body opens like a cloud of aspersions,
always the antagonist in my own poetry.

If only we could trace the corners of these thoughts
with enough time to heal everything we have ever wanted.
If only time wasn't so mighty.

Not Suffering in Montreal

After years of peeling the layers of grief
from the tender spaces between my cells

I have chiseled the stone and untangled the thorny vines
that revolve around the blushing martyr I had forgotten.

Now, walking the luxurious streets of Montreal,
I glance at myself in a window
and can smile at that wise novitiate,
blisters forming
on my tired feet.

Tonight I will let my head spin
with some cold wine
and an easy breath
that opens my heart as wide
as the seaway entering the ocean
one wave of suffering drifting away
at a time.

More Silence

We all have the capacity
deep in our dreaming bones
for more silence.

On this empty frontier of the mind,
clarity is the only expense.
Clarity is the solitary refuge.

I have sung this lonely canticle,
chanting in silence
until the echos accumulate
like petals of daisies
after a July storm.

This white vibration we share in the prayer beads
at the gathering of the pulse at slim wrists,
in the quickening pads of our fingertips,

is the gaze of a lover
holding the moment
for infinity.

This Time

Feel the heart of me
at your feet
washing the dust away,
washing the wounds that reopened
unexpectedly;
such violence
is unforgivable.

The loneliness of pain
after silence is a crime,
the price of another unspoken war.

This time, let the poet speak.

This time, stand in the center of the village
with your fists raised and let anger glow
like an ember that will burn the fields
clear of the wonder and abundance.

This time,
let the truth of sacred words
gather their force
with an all consuming heat
hungry for more.

And when you return from the scorched battlefield,
I will gather you into my arms, weeping
for all you have seen.

The mind cannot be healed.

The heart is a patient lover
tenderly soothing the broken Beloved.

Planting After Good Friday

Sweet peas
planted after good
Friday sprout near the slide
and swings.

I cultivate sunflowers
and the pumpkins
from last year
will blossom
nourished
by children laughing
in the green grass.

I harrow the earth
and fertilize with manure
and a winter's worth of composted
kitchen scraps.

We will all be fed
by the richest colors
when the sun rises early
and we are released
from worry about anything
but growth.

Hungry

The velocity of love,
lasso and tall boots included,
swishes above our heads,

gallops into the gracious sunset
boldly undisturbed by gravity
and shallow furrows in the earth
from which we all crawled.

Dust boils and heat waves shimmer in the distance.
In this arid and forlorn place we are endlessly trawling
for opulent words that cultivate the perfect moment
for romance, a lonesome trail song,
or some other mystery to be sung around the campfire
under the brilliant stars
and marveling at a round and radiant moon.

I am just another thorn under the saddle of losses,
afraid to look before the long day's ride is over.

It is fear that tracks me on this tired journey,
hungry and waiting for the predator
to see the weakness limping
near the edge of abundant joy.

Be Still

The lopsided spring
drizzles along in her gray uniform
and squeaking rubber boots.

The opulent daffodils are billowing
in the coolness under dripping skies.

Just when we are all ready to surrender to sadness,
put our hands up and huddle in the corner of our grief,

the clouds step aside
and the purple flowering trees
release us on the sweet scent

of a forgotten trail
where love never wanted to hide.

Be still on the edge of this field
and God will arrive
without an invitation.

The Relief I Feel

These first breaths of purity of thought hold me before the day
with only the sounds of bird song
and the tapping of rain on a single layer
of cedar shingles.

These inhalations, still calm before the ritual of coffee
and malfeasance of the mind's controlling power,
are not polluted with high brambles, sharp blades of grasses,
or pointed tips of thistled wanting.

How will I explain to my sons
this dedication to darkest revenge
and the vendetta against the patriarchs suddenly abandoned--
all the other golden images we once worshipped, simply gone?

Now that the statues have been melted in truth's kiln
with common metals for their strength,
the beautiful opulence is gone.

The relief I feel is overwhelming.

I am completely peaceful in this garden where nothing grows

except the single lotus from the clouded and muddy pool
slowly collecting the warm tears of gratitude

of letting go.

Words Like Flowing Wine

In a perfect world
the pendulum of the grapevine
would stop swinging
and find a still point
in the center of fear and love.

The rumors that trickle into the chasm of truth
are few and far between where love has sidled up
to the heart and ignores the temptation to glamorize

fear and the ignorant path
that burrows below the surface of the skin
and turns the leaves into dry and curling words
that only harm us with the scorching dishonesty
that cannot be washed clean.

Stand tall and find your center of gravity
and the words will flow smoothly from the tongue
like water on the petals overflowing kindness.

Snow Storm in April

In tribute to a mild winter
we allow joy to follow our amazement
as a miniature snow storm hits Vermont
this early April.

The winds walloped us last night
as we sunk into the pillows,
anticipated the worst,
and dutifully bought bread and milk,
gassed up the cars,
and waited for the renegade precipitation
to forget her manners
and enter the party uninvited.

No one paid for this lopsided exchange
where spring and summer edged us closer to hope
only to be taken in by cancellations
clumsy with ungainly excuses
to the flowers that dared to collect the sun and color
like the blush on a girl's face after her first dance.

The night is hushed now and we forgive everything
knowing it is all a temporary, youthful hoax-
a whistle at the door
reminding us to all come home early.

Walking to Work

It is impossible to ignore the shimmer of spring
as the cumbersome layers of dark days fall away,
fracturing the illusion of all that I have left behind.

Each new day is vacant of the painful assaults
and bruises of expectation,
that plundered joy and the logic of abundant love.

Let the brusque wind and blithe April showers
divide my heart from the mind that saddled me
with heavy thoughts of the unkindness of the world.

It is the Beloved that has arrived
in the yellow cup of the daffodil
and the delicate edges of the short passion
of each purple crocus
along this gentle path
walking to the work I must do.

Knowing When It is Time to Go

The divestment from this miserly and unfaithful master
is threaded from a spool spun with potent, black misery.

Vanity loves another kind of company
and all I can do is run from the poison
and too many pockmarked promises.

I forget myself on a vagabond errand
toward joy that cannot be measured by money
or human desire. Time and love are all that matter.

Time and love are all that I have been given.

I am chalky with gratitude
and evening dusts me with salty simplicity
like I know at the end of a sunny soak
in the belly of the ocean.
In this moment only
I am breathing air saturated with brine
and God's constant laughter--

knowing so clearly when
it is time to go.

Welding With Jonah

When I spend the weekend welding with my son,
who has entered into his beautiful teenaged amperage,
we weld with evolutionary electrodes, fire and fuel
fusing our bonds,
pushing the molten lines of metallic love
into the spaces between the strongest of steel.

The slag and flux of life has no magnetic power
in this heat that still burns brightly in the forge
of the life that brings us together.

Sparks fly like comets all around us,
landing randomly in the noise of a shop of strangers.

My grandfather's Norwegian shadow
coils like smoke around our heads, laughing.
There's no joy like watching the shining seam
hold tight as the quenching solution steams.

The Tasks Left Undone

Perhaps we've all forgotten,
one time or another,

how hard it is
to do anything alone.

Each meddlesome task
a metallic taste
like a pending headache
that leaves each of us indecently vulnerable
to losing time.

This mottled mess
of what is left undone
is what brings me to my knees,
helpless watching all hope
wash out to sea.

Cold

Bone tired and breaking,
cold creeps in under the unattended doors
and around the places where warmth disappears.

Pull the colorful quilt high
and nuzzle into the tottering pile of pillows
where the wind cannot touch you tonight.

Wait for the sound of pots pulled from the cupboards
and the smell of coffee and toast
before you crawl from your dreaming at dawn.

Pray that the breaking of the day
will make haste for love
and for the forgiveness of sunshine.

Warm Spell

February has suddenly liquified,
a sponge wrung out into the dirty dish water of days,
pallid and lacking all signs of any season.

We stand in a stupor
wondering if winter has forgotten how to howl this year
or if we might trust our hibernation instincts
and shuffle heavily back into our dens
out of the unexpected warmth
and open streams.

Turn the wrench tighter on spring
like a ground hog's blinking eyes
discerning the earth
while clearly still a frozen mystery.

We can all give up pretending to know anything.

Instead, let us pray for the tiny chirping mouths of flowers
who sing their songs of praise and thanksgiving
out of turn and with no sense that the ashes from which we all come
have not a single ember to claim.

Tonight I Will Not Scurry

Tonight I will not scurry toward the noose
where I often hover in desperate thoughts
of the toothless future
or the wafer consumed in sin.

Tonight I will climb the shaking ladder of love,
fertile and blossoming,
and weave a garland of jasmine
so that I might place it gently
around the neck of the present moment.

Tonight I will dream of leaving all that is undone
and invite the honey and the bee to rest
while we drift on the current of all time.

In this sleeping peace
there is never anywhere to go
and always nothing to do
but extend the hand in kindness
to the whole world.

Climate of the Soul

On this last day of January
where the warmth of a cautious winter
stoically frowns on the melting driveway

it is not lost on my logical self
how lucky I am.

After so many winters of shoveling myself out
of the darkness and cold,
I am freer than I have ever been
to take my cup of tea
and sit quietly doing nothing
while the world brashly ignores my peace.

After my kindness and conscientiousness of duty
to keep the paths clear, I am given this small break
in order to notice an afternoon of joy.

Let the climate of the soul change
and let fear flow away deep into the earth.

Between

On the cusp of God's love
you might think there is voodoo
or some maniac incubating in my throbbing chest,

but this love is reasoned and contains enough mindful joy
that we will honor all of this abundance
by holding it gently
like one holds the tiny fingers of an infant,
amazed at the miracle of the pale sliver
of each nail and the pink beauty
plucked from heaven's sentinel.

Gratitude lives in this space
between the insistent inhale
our eventual reluctant death.

Sit With Me

Sit with me in this pretense of winter sun
and nibble on a bit of scone, sip the debacle
of coffee squeamish with cream and raw sugar
I have managed to gather into a chipped cup.

Sit with me as I do what I can to harness my wisdom,
like catching the wind on a still day,
silent as this heart aching cold as granite,
pinched in the grip of the roots of dark pines
on some abandoned northern slope.

I have started to skitter at the thought of skin touching skin
and draw out of sight at intimate questions by passing the baton of conversation
to the mundane formation of clouds or the sighting of a rare chickadee.

Perhaps it is too late for me to find myself
inside all this cluttered and anxious thinking about tomorrow.
If you come to sit with me now you might only find the remains
of the chrysalis left behind while I dry my new wings
in the light of nothingness.

A Hand Full of Flowers

In the vivid light of this bleached moment,
I am so much more than ordinary.

I shuffle into the pine shadows
so as not to burn the delicate
curves of my shoulders and freckled nose.

I rest before the hill.
It is the only way to do it.

The velocity of my racing heart
toward all love, brandishing joy
like this bunch of daisies.

A sudden melody "give me your answer true"
pops into my head
and I am lost in my memory
on the blue bicycle
nearing the edge of a pothole.

You will pick me up from the tarred gravel
blood oozing, tears making obvious lines
down my dusty young face.

You are there to calm me, to bandage my wounds
and give thanks for the freedom of two wheels

and a hand full of flowers
for my mother.

Strangers On Some Back Road

We've all brushed up against the anesthetic drooping of winter
with a sudden beastly surprise of some fierce blizzard,
putting our hearts atilt,
saturated with hope for a robin-mild January;
forgiven for our venial offenses.

We all blink back the tears of another disappointed wounding,
plumb with the rusty truth it won't be the last lie.

You'll break that axle again
on some back road of a dream,
lost and forgetting the way.

Strangers are everywhere.
Strangers will rob you blind.
Strangers knock casually on the window
hoping you'll open the door
long enough to copy the keys
and smile as they walk away with everything.

TGIF

I have given up on the saccharin treasures of my optimism today.
There is no angelic voice calling me "Honey" at the drive-thru with my morning coffee,
no toothless grin of a child on the bus making me late,
nor the calming taste of left over licorice to heal me.

My mind is a rabble of noisy, angry thoughts
left over from a work-week full of unnecessary toil.

My colleagues and I depart the place
where we make sweaty wages,
defeated and lifeless,
as if we were the putrid remains of some poor animal
run over and left to rot on the side of the road.

I wipe the mucous from the pinched corner of my mouth
and spit the poison onto the ground.

On days like these, let the rain fall down in all her misery
and give me hope that tomorrow
can't get any worse.

The paper cuts will fade in no time.
The psychological games and irrational gems
will be there, festering,
when we get back on Monday.

For now, we give knowing looks to each other as we pass out the door saying,
"Thank God it is Friday."

Where Witches Take Tea

At the vegetarian cafe in Burlington
where nothing happens, my mouth is sluggish
with wine
and sweet
vanilla beans
in cream,

yet the words in my mind blister with witchcraft
I would unleash if I had a wand full of magic
and the will to burn the smoking truth into timbers
of the raging false structure surrounding us all.

It would not take a detective long to consider the wind speed
and elevation in calculating the fool.

The smile on the face of the innocent pinches
and converges at the touching of hands

and the imagination of so many sun-drenched days.

Make Way for More

These days I would settle for a treaty.
Where gossip plunders the truth.
let the voice of wisdom bring focus.

Where a gallant idea surfaces,
let us coax creativity like a breezeway to the heart.

Where a carbuncle of hate swells and festers
under the surface near the source,
let the foolish klutz laugh
and release love onto the path
between heart and denial.

Collect respect.
Loiter in love.
Make way for more.

In the Delicate Hours

In the delicate hours after sleep is upon the body
like a mistral at midnight

let the night tell her stories
coaxing love from the belly of the constant darkness.

I have placated sadness for so long
I had forgotten what gratitude does for the white snows,
brilliant cardinals in pairs at the feeder,
and warm coffee in a single press.

Each word of comfort,
verbatim from the deepest winter heart,
whispering a secret code at the doorway
to a society that forgives everything.