Posts for June 23, 2026 (page 7)

When liberty died,
she went screaming. 

    "What kind of bird can't fly?"

He'd joke. Telling the same
anecdote about the
same poor redneck kids who
attended the day school,
knows as "alternative,"
for the kids kicked out of
the normal schools.

    "A jailbird,"

He would answer himself
enthusiastically.
Each narrative displayed
compassionate humor
for the kids' lives he changed.

Those were the days you could
chain smoke inside any
building, even a school...
Ash tray always in reach
amidst paper-covered 
surfaces, stacked so high,
the desk felt overwhelmed.

The place I loved to be.
Drinking school chocolate
milk and pretending that
I was the one in charge.
But he was the hero.

I have also heard that

    "Not all heroes wear capes."

You were exhausting!
A train with no stops,
an oil well with no top.
You were exhausting!

Monocultures exhaust me—
standard-issue blond tassles
wave in windy unison
proprietary legions
parade in money-green ranks
no time to be free, fallow.

Where have all the songbirds gone?

They whisper low in hollers deep,
When evening mists awake,
Of something stirring in the dark
Below old Fishtrap Lake.

Not catfish broad nor paddlefish,
Nor gar too scarred with years,
But something older than the hills,
That fed on miners’ fears.

Its neck would rise like sycamores
Bent softly in the breeze,
Its emerald eyes like lantern flames
Above the ghost-white trees.

The elders say before the dam
When Russell Fork ran wild,
The creature wandered mountain streams
As ancient as God’s child.

It watched the Shawnee hunt the elk,
Saw Cherokee trails fade,
Heard axes bite the virgin pine
And coal towns first be made.

When valleys filled beneath the waves
And farms were lost from sight,
The mountain beast found deeper halls
To haunt the moonlit night.

Some fishermen have sworn they’ve seen
A shadow break the glass—
A humped back rolling silently,
Then gone before they’d gasp.

One claimed it followed to the dock,
Its wake as smooth as silk;
Another found great scales ashore,
As green as summer milk.

The herons never nest too close,
The otters veer away,
And even eagles circle high
Above that haunted bay.

On fog-bound mornings, if you’re still,
You might just hear it sing—
A mournful note like fiddle strings
When winter courts the spring.

Some say it guards the flooded homes
Where chimneys sleep below,
Keeping watch on memories
The living cannot know.

Others claim its lonely heart
Has searched through countless years
For another of its mountain kind,
Now lost beyond the spheres.

So if you cast at break of dawn
Where quiet waters gleam,
And something stirs beneath your boat
That isn’t what it seems,

Don’t chase the wake with greedy eyes,
Nor curse what you can’t see.
Just tip your cap toward the mountain mist
And leave the depths to be.

For every lake has secret things,
And every ridge its lore—
Fishtrap keeps one ancient soul
The mountains still adore.

Knowing that you are in pain
is far more excruciating than any discomfort of my own
I’m prickling sensitive, imminently tearful
My body on high alert, as if my activated response can somehow overpower
          the slow sadness of your loss
as if I can conjure a force field of fierce protection
around your heart.

Here, take mine –
I’d rather it be the broken one
it’s pulled through before
and I want yours whole, and warm, and wild with bliss;
Let me
handle the storms.

6/23/26

Just a quick reminder
if you feel alone because
you’re waiting for your friends to reach out to you first,
you’re not being a good friend either.

I rise lightly as birds sing their morning song,

gleeful and grateful for their message.

I tiptoe to the coffee maker, careful not to wake the baby.

Pressure simmers beneath the surface boiling, boiling.

My heart aches.

The baby wakes, happy and sweet.

We wander to the garden to take a peek.

To my surprise, lemon balm flourishes.

My mood lifts as the pressure turns to smoke.

I delicately grab a few leaves.

It feels only right to make a cup of tea,

to soothe the cracked iceberg that is me.

We walk into the house.

Baby hits her head on the threshold, perched on my hip.

She cries and I do too.

The world tilts a cry, a thrum, a flood of warmth

that rises, shakes, spills, and then softens us both.

I sip the lemon balm tea slowly,

from my favorite cup blue as night,

moons and stars, a whispered promise follow your dreams.

The tea warms me,

and I taste joy in the ocean beneath the iceberg.

Gently, with green leaves, tiny hands,

and a cup that knows how to hold my heart,

a lemon balm Wednesday unfolds delicate and frail.

I go outside to my wife’s van
to get the charging cord for
my phone that I took on vacation.
I had forgotten it for a day
and my phone’s battery and I
had registered its absence.
Lunch hasn’t been made for tomorrow,
the dogs need feeding and we 
had just cleaned out the van of
groceries that need to be put away.

A step outside the house, and
the air hits me, muggy with moisture,
heavy in my lungs. The clouds start
wisping away, showing first stars
in the growing twilight. A breath
of wind stirs the trees and lifts
leaves of the firecracker daylilies,
opening and wilting to spite my
abandonment the week before.
And just out of the corner of my eye
a lone firefly winks into existence,
it’s slow pattern telling me – 
Slow down before summer’s gone.

Hiking into the mist as the trail rises to the peak
Damp leaves slip beneath our sneakers
Speech is rare and soft in this temple
Water rushes off to the left
A jay scolds unnecessarily above our heads
We know we are trespassing