Posts for June 9, 2026 (page 13)

        Be sure to live in vain dear. I wish I had.
        Emily Dickinson

A birthday comes but once a year.
Today— mine brings the zinnia’s first bouquet:
Queen lime red, Sahara cherry,
salmon, and yellow flame.

Never true blues, yet who needs them
against an azure sky?
And though clouds blur this morning,
they embrace the heavens still. 

I blow a kiss to Mother Earth—
the one who whispered to Emily D
to live in wonder, as I do here,
in dirt and nature.
The rest is passing mist.

A chipped shoulder can be covered up
if you always let the straps of your bag sit in the crook.
The volume of the handles will balance out the missing piece.
And if you wear a jacket to cover up,
that will fill the gap even more.
Thick sweaters do the job too.
Just cover and fill.
Cover and fill.
Something can always make up for 
the bitty missing piece.
Even if it’s not so small,
you can always find something big enough
to make up for what went: 
what is not there to keep you as warm
as the sweaters you always wear now.

Always in June, I go looking
for a piece to slot in, power the circuit
make something of this endless current
find a way out and a way in
a way closer, a way over
take something, break something
run out screaming.

So this morning, I pour over the cards,
Do what you do.

VI. THE LOVERS.
XIII. DEATH.

So hard to find joy without mess
because there is a hare in me
that wants to wake up in a strange den
knowing nobody but my friends
knowing nothing of the passage of time
but for the sun sweeping across the sky
the cold blue moon, the things we get up to
the harsh neon, the pocket dimension, the emperor’s new clothes
It is like there is never enough information but always too much
Can I draw another?

IV. THE EMPEROR, reversed.

I’ll put on my shoes first
go for a walk, grow giddy
of all the stunts I’ll try
when I get the time.

In the holler where the laurel grows,
And the creek sings low through mossy stones,
There lives a kind of mountain spell
No book has learned and none can tell.

It rides the mist at break of day,
When ridgelines fade to shades of gray,
And hangs like silver on the pines
Where old-time whispers cross the vines.

The granny woman knows its name,
Though she won’t speak it just the same.
She gathers roots by moonlit glow,
Where bloodroot and wild ginseng grow.

The whip-poor-will calls after dark,
A hidden song, a mountain mark.
The owls reply from hemlock shade,
As ancient bargains still are made.

Some say the magic’s in the land—
In weathered rock and calloused hands.
In miners’ lamps and blackened coal,
In hymns that soothe a weary soul.

Some find it dancing in the fire,
That crackling, amber mountain choir,
Where stories passed from kin to kin
Keep all the old worlds living in.

It lingers where the cardinals fly,
Like scarlet sparks beneath the sky,
And follows every winding road
The mountain people call their own.

For Appalachian magic’s not
The kind that’s learned or sold or bought.
It’s faith and memory intertwined,
A stubborn heart, a steady mind.

It’s knowing spring will find the hills
Though winter tests them as it will;
And trusting roots buried deep below
Will bloom again when warm winds blow.

So if you wander through these lands,
Listen close and understand:
The oldest magic you’ll ever know
Lives in the mountains’ quiet glow.

A labyrinth of stone and gloom,
where shadows whisper, softly loom.
Bioluminescent fungi, glowing like stars,
unfurling, bright and slow.
The eerie light, a guiding thread
through winding paths
where fears are fed.
The air is thick, with secrets spun,
in this dark cradle, time comes undone.
Yet in the dark, I find a spark,
a flicker bright, igniting the dark.
Though lost I roam, I’m not alone,
the glowing mushrooms call me home. 

The art of noticing

makes me. High,

wake to the blue

moon nested sycamore

yonder, its bit of bright

recovering some good

dark from me.

A fly darts in my throat

Ruminating

I make myself sick

It rolls over me in waves

Just thinking about how grief has her in its clutches

A flash of red on the wind

And a heaviness in the air

All because of her

I long to make it better for her

What I wouldn’t give

To make sure she knows

When she laughs

The stars sparkle brighter

When she cries

The earth’s spinning stutters

When she leaves

She takes the music with her

to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to get off my ass and rearrange
the room regardless of who it will piss off
or inconvenience, and the wisdom
to know the continued refinement of my ability
to be happy despite is just my training to tolerate,
my warping to suffer for everyone else’s
convenience and comfort. Grant me the serenity
to embody that my experience of the world
is partly my experience and partly the world,
and they’re both up for critique and adjustment,
courage to say this is the deal, take it or leave it,
and the wisdom to see multiple avenues
to a new city. Grant me the serenity to remember
to walk outside and cry to the oak trees for comfort,
courage to light a house on fire if that is the only
way, and the wisdom to justify it all in court.
Grant me the serenity to put a lock on the door
and give out no duplicate keys, courage to expect
everyone to learn to speak my hybrid language,
as I always learn theirs, and the wisdom
to light the right candles when it’s dark.

 Winding roads take her home
A place that carries the secrets of her past
Fear floods her heart
Thoughts of getting stuck in the heaviness weighing her down
Feeling the storm brew from inside
Destruction was its only guide        
 Yet there was time that this beautiful place
She holds so dear
The tenderness of raising her children
The laughter they shared, carefree days on the lake
Friendships built still ever present
Slowly she let gentleness take hold
Letting all the memories unfold
Stacked in piles and ready to be filed
No life is lived with perfection
The wind begins to fade
 The storm within her heart will wait for another day