I Hear Thunder in the Distance
Rain clouds bubble up
and us, without umbrellas.
A storm is brewing.
We’re on the other end of the lake
when one of the boat’s engines
loses oil pressure. Now what was
a half-hour ride across the water
could take three times as long
going back.
But a gentler journey at least allows
me to lay out on the bow staring up
at stars peeking through soft light pollution.
That’s the handle of the Big Dipper there
and I think the bright one above is Polaris,
the North Star. Lord, I need some guidance.
I got stories colliding like cosmic events
because it’s rare that we ever meet people
at clean breaks between the chapters.
Every page turn could pull the main plot
forward or introduce a stellar twist
to drive meaning and message home.
It’s too easy to outright dismiss
what doesn’t seem possible at the moment,
easy to preemptively give up
when failure is all you’re used to.
So I want you to imagine yourself
lying under these stars with me.
What’s your favorite song? Favorite book?
What makes you laugh? What makes you cry?
Let’s embrace in a hammock for two
or read side-by-side in a gazebo.
Let’s take a dip in lapping lakewaters,
let’s go out on a long, long walk together.
Life is for living so you have to be ready
to seize it when it’s happening for you
or you wake up years later like what happened?
I got stories still teaching new ways of being
and stars to illuminate the darkest nights.
All that’s left now is turning to the next page.
You know life has reached a new low
when your only emergency contact
is the county courthouse.
A sticky summer night,
pale ales flowing from branded
tents like water, my Dad, Andrew,
Logan and myself all drinking,
folding ourselves into our social shapes.
I am in my moth eaten guise
of charm. Carrying on and cutting up,
letting my spirit dance across
a few spare jokes, faltering.
Something calls to me
from the stage. I want to abscond
to the woods in drag. Forage a new scene
with the same love. Find friendship in my
foolish company.
The earth turns completely, and we are here today.
Watching As You Like It,
slightly drunk, and crunched
up into sticky green benches,
summer dusk descending on us,
our shoulders, our plastic stacks of empties.
It is just one more thing
I think
will make our life complete
maybe even
perfect
I am a tulip
Made of Dutch root and bullshit
A fleeting season
Of beautiful relevance
Speculation rife and rich
i still read the watch-
Oðinn’s attempts to woo Rindr fail three times
though her royal father approves.
Rindr — of yellow hair, pert chin, eyes the blue of old ice,
and womanly form — feels no desire for dalliance with this deity.
His brash masculinity, coarse manners, offend.
Often drunk, always ego-driven,
and with the juice of goat meat, breadcrumbs,
and mead festooning his beard,
he disgusts her.
She rebuffs his rough advances,
dances aside when he lunges,
turns her face when he tries to apply sloppy lips
to her pristine and comely face. She knows,
he only wants a son to replace the slain Balder,
and she won’t be his brood mare.
So Oðinn resorts to magic…
He begs Frejya for spells and incantations to weaken a woman’s will.
To make him cease wedeling, Frejya,
Goddess of Love, Divination and Magic,
relents — only to later regret.
Poor Rindr falls prey,
so sick, dizzy, and unable to eat
she takes to her bed.
Vekka, an old woman and healer petitions King Billing —
“I can help her, but my cure is bitter.”
Oðinn lies in both words appearance.
Rindr’s father binds her to her bed
so she’ll swallow the bitter draught,
then leaves Vekka to her frightful work.
Lifting his robe shows Rindr Oðinn’s deceit.
Her father ignores Rindr’s shrikes and pleadings;
he thinks she fights Vekka’s dosing.
Indeed, she does!
No love suffuses Oðinn’s treatment
as he forces himself upon his bound victim.
No gentle wooing accompanies his approach.
This bitter dose leaves Rindz with nightmares
of Vekka’s medicine, of pain and humiliation.
Worse yet, when her menses cease and her breasts ache
she knows the full nature of the draught.
Oðinn will have his new son.
But Frejya sees Oðinn’s work, his deception.
The court of Gods and Goddesses condemns.
Despite achieving his goal,
Oðinn is cast out, shunned for ten years,
a grievous sentence.
Even so, valid grudges remain.
Oðinn’s honor suffers
and repugnance of his crime
makes him outcast,
but justice is only partly served.
