My sons ears, upturned

Walking hand in hand, learning

Who to love, and hate...

The space between stars is best described as a river, a floodplain of unemployed light, shining invisibly, waiting desperately for something to pass between them and feel the warmth they’ve been sharing all this time. That is what we are sweet one. We are how the universe feels its own heat, touches its own skin, records its own heartbreak. And when the lights go out, when the stars tire of giving...

Pop

Pin prick to cosmos

Timeless to tempo

Dilation to coalescence

Dust to cloud to planet

Crash

Collisions, collapses, chaos

Time

Time

Time

Pool

Carbon to compound

Chemistry to biology

Bacteria to backbone to breath

Bees, Crocodiles, dinosaurs

Crash

Time

Time

Time

Growth

Divergence by populations

Catching prey

Dodging trouble

Camouflage, tooth, poison, claw

Tools, tribes, tech

People

Time

Time

T...

I am an apple far from its tree

Which is to say

I cuss when I step on a nail

But cry when I try to sing

And that when you put on

Your honeysuckle perfume

I can feel a meadow of wildflower bruises

Well up on my skin

That when I hear talk of god

I bow my head

And leave the room

That when I see something broken

I try to fix it

That when I see someone broken

I hold them

Because I am broken too

Like a...

I am learning you

How our hands touch, your smile

Blackberries in spring

New parts of you bloom

Bright through the twisting thicket

Fireflies at woods edge

We touch, the comfort

Of years between our edges

Soft rain on the skin

Love made someone new

A deep river growing wider

Honeysuckle drifts

I have fallen deep

Into the habit of love

Cricketsong from high grass...

Has any performer stood so long behind the curtain? Has anyone held onto the anticipation for years inside boxes in boxes in attic or basement? Has anyone ever been so ready for their audience? That at a glimmer of light the band starts up and her feet begin to move as if in their own? She has practiced her routine for daughters who have become grandmothers, the steps a part of her as much as her...

No more hiding place

No more small quiet hope

Tucked away in a corner

Safe, out of sight

It’s done now

It’s open rebellion

Or silent resignation

Our kids will have sunburns

In winter, our neighbors

Will be gone by Christmas

We gave away the whole damn ballgame

To a racist rapist conman

When they come for you

There will be no one left

To speak up....

On the bedside table of the horizon

What is remembered of the day

Is being written on a journal of clouds.

The East is dark but in the west

The sky is closing its bright eye

Behind a lid of twinkling night,

Already dreaming in the cricketsong....

Hell is high water, dark, up to your eyes

Standing on tiptoes till your feet cramp

Treading water, trying not to think

About what’s brushing your leg.

The whole towns flooded sister

And it hasn’t stopped raining.

I’m not a life preserver

But I stop by to drown with you from time to time,

To remember the people whose legs gave out.

They’re still beneath the surface

Like sharks or driftwood they s...

Are we out yet love?

You have been through hell. I know;

I came after you.

Please break this dreadful silence.

I need to know you’re still there.

We are not out, love,

But soon. Can’t you see that light?

So long in silence,

There is yet a song in me

Of us. Please wait, wait for me....