“Take off your sandals, for the place where
you are standing is holy ground.” Exodus 3:5
Remove barriers. Bare
your soles and soul.
Take a breath and dig
into the earth, created
by God. You are so beloved.
Absorb this truth. Wear it like soil
between your toes. Know that
you are part of the miracle.
I don’t know about
birthdates, man. But I was there.
Isn’t that enough?
The morning mist still climbs the ridge
the way your prayers once climbed the dawn.
The whip-poor-will still calls my name,
though you’ve been gone so long.
Your apron hangs in memory’s hall,
its pockets full of seeds and grace.
I still can smell fresh biscuits warm,
and see the kindness in your face.
You taught me how to read the sky,
to know when rain was drawing near,
to gather strength from stubborn hills,
and never bow to doubt or fear.
The creek remembers every step
of barefoot summers by your side.
The dogwoods bloom because they know
the place where gentle spirits hide.
Sometimes when autumn paints the hills
with amber, crimson, rust, and gold,
I feel your hand upon my shoulder,
steady as the days of old.
The wind that sweeps through hemlock trees
still speaks with your familiar tone.
It tells me love outlives the flesh;
no child is ever left alone.
And when I climb these mountain paths,
where coal dust sleeps beneath the moss,
I see how life and death entwine,
how beauty blossoms out of loss.
So when my own day’s light grows dim,
and evening settles soft and slow,
I’ll find you where the ridges meet,
where mountain laurel flowers grow.
Until that hour, I’ll carry on,
the way you always taught me to—
With Appalachian grit and grace,
a faithful heart made strong by you.
For mothers never leave these hills.
They linger in the cedar’s sigh,
the church bells drifting through the holler,
the hawk that circles through the sky.
And every time I whisper, “Mom,”
the mountains answer, deep and true:
“Love is older than these ancient stones,
and it is waiting here with you.”
Happy Birthday, Mommy.
Miller Avenue like an old man’s mouth
has many spaces between its yellow teeth
(stores not torn down for taxes)
A slag pile Everest before the city pool
my boy dad scaling its heights for a dip
A gang beats Mom just blocks from school
Coke works barring her kids
from the medicinal Monongahela
futures floating by undisturbed
Falls days gray summers simmer
Little here is new
This dream is no nightmare
The “City of Prayer” still unanswered
which is why this is a love poem
To wander through the decades
looking for the girl I left behind.
You know the one—
shy and reticent,
pretending to belong
when all along
she’s looking
for someone
to understand.
Can you see her?
She looks a lot like you.
But wait, begin again.
It isn’t her I’m looking for
but you— the one I never knew.
The one who discovered fire.
It could be true.
There is no separation
you and I
no other
one atom split in two
separated at conception
looking always looking
for connection
a girl
an atom
some chemistry
a universe of one.
Let me begin again.
I’m no longer trying to make sense
Does a poet ever write
poems about the future?
No ground from which a redbud
sprouts to be the heart-shaped
leaves reminding you of February,
second grade, that red-wrapped
lacy box, your mother’s scissors,
her deft hands. The future’s
more a block of unused clay
to pound and mold into the shape
behind your eyes,
and time its only kiln.
Poets are not potters.
The past still holds its form
though it, too, has softened
at the edges, just enough,
some days,
to fit onto the page.
Always at this time of day, at dusk, the dinner hour, I
Begin to wilt, losing life force and all
Caring. I just want to
Disappear, hiding away from
Everyone around me. Night
Fall brings with it a force that
Grounds me and weights me with the
Heaviness of my day and all the need around me.
I have no choice, but to succumb to the
Joylessness that seeps in and brings me to my
Knees. I melt into the darkness, far away from the
Light, anything that might ignite some shimmer of desire to
Move, to engage, to reclaim this precious time from
Nothingness to somethingness. To offer those in my
Orbit, something better than this, the best of me. Not the
Pretend mom or wife or friend. But the me whose heart
Quickens just to be in their presence, witnessing their lives
Right there with them, all in, not
Standing in the background hiding from the obligation, but
Trying desperately to stay with it, with them, have them feel me
Under their skin, in their face, so they always know that I am
Very close, feeling not just my warmth, but my sadness, my ire, the
Whole of me…I want to bring the whole of me, all my parts
eXemplified by my showing up and showing myself and showing
You all that I am here, not hidden, not done, not
Zero.
* An abecedarian poem
Some mornings
I wake up next to you
your hair skimming my skin as you kiss my cheek
Other mornings
you’re miles away
your words and smiles adrift in my dissipating dreams
I try to bottle the residual glow from the former
to pull me through the latter;
my greed feels shameful
in the face of so much abundance
but my soul seems to devour your light
leaving me ravenously dim
until next time
6/16/26
