Posts for June 24, 2026 (page 2)

Leaving Some For The Future

It always seemed magical,

When into the forest we would go,

We’d scout the darkened hollers,

Where we knew the plant would grow.

In the deepest darkest sections,

Out on the northern slopes,

We would begin our searching,

And twas here we’d feed our hopes.

We’d search for Seng Pointer,

Also known as Rattlesnake Fern,

The long central leaf’s an arrow,

Pointing the direction we should turn.

Then we’d look uphill in search of benches,

Towards the biggest tallest trees,

In their limbs the rising birds,

Took refuge from the breeze.

With luck they carried the red berries,

On which they had dined,

The seeds would fall beneath those trees,

After having been scarified.

Perhaps they would have sprouted,

There in the deepening shade,

To form the forking man shaped root,

In the cool and lonesome glade.

Our eyes would scan the greenery,

Covering the ground,

Virginia Creeper, Poison Ivy,

In abundance they were found.

Our mind would feel the tingle,

Which anticipation brings,

Our step would become lively,

As if we tread on springs.

A funny feeling would come over us,

A feeling that IT’s near,

As if the plant would call to us,

In words only we could hear.

And then beneath an ancient walnut,

Around the gnarled wizened roots,

I see the first golden leaves, 

On the straight and golden shoot.

Five leaves in each cluster,

Grouped together on four prongs,

So stately and proud it’s growing,

Exactly where it belongs.

I know this plant’s an old one,

One rarely found these days,

With perhaps the man shaped root,

For which the most is paid.

I think to myself of scarcity,

Ecology and such,

I think of the fun in hunting seng,

That I have loved so much.

I think of all the berries,

This plant has given to the soil,

And it seems a shame to dig this one,

It seem something would be lost and spoiled.

I shake my head at my silliness,

And curse myself a fool,

I break off the telltale golden top,

And bury it with my ‘senging tool.

To protect the root from others,

Less sentimental perhaps, than I,

I know there will be at least one more crop of berries,

From this aged plant by and by.

Watch how she unmakes
the body he ignored,
as if subtraction
were a kind of wealth,
or the empty hand
held more than the full one.

She enters that arithmetic
of burning,
and the months lose count of her,
each day a leaf
the season strips
and does not number.

She leaves the palace
to walk barefoot in a forest
that does not know
which ghosts are watching.

Her breath stops
and stays stopped,
suspended
against the wheel
of the south.

Holy men creep close
to watch a girl out-suffer them
and go away unmade.

The heat that leaves her spine
is not a prayer
thrown upward
hoping for an ear.
It will arrive
the way solstice does,
having traveled
the whole long sky to get here,
the way the north star
does not knock.

He feels it now —
the sum of ash and hunger,
proof she can be made so light
she outweighs a god.

And what comes for her
wears snakes,
rains cinder
from the burning-grounds
holds poison at the throat
and will not let it fall.

He used to laugh
when she teased him.
Reading affection
in her face.
Too blind to notice
she never smiled.

Years later,
the chapters
looked different.
The book held traces
of resentment
hiding in plain sight.

Clarity arrives,
while rose-colored glasses crack.
He deserved better.

feeding ewes and lambs
cardinal sighting startles
ruby set in green

How could you be so disconnected from the works of your own hand?

What callous fingers could not tell the difference between eggshells and petals?

Is it not apparent,

How the world tiptoes through your littered floor,

Only to dance in the hall beyond your door?

Do you not hear the music is out of tune,

And your pilfered banquet has turned sour?

Will you blame the winter when the cold returns,

And the fireplace lies bare, 

And the trees are unfelled,

And the dull axe was never lifted?

Surely, razing peaceful homes and nearby fields will keep you warm

As you stand by tinder and flame, watching the burn,

But only for a moment.

For soot-stained, threadbare wool holds no heat,

And the feckless wolf has nothing left in the forest it has emptied,

Only the lullaby of its chattering teeth.

Shiver.

They lift the doves from their cage so gently,
so deftly holding them across the chest.

As if they were born with birds in their hands,
these pigeon sellers.

Will anybody buy the speckled male?

He puffs his proud neck, fans his tail,
and bird blood fills the rings around his eyes,
but he can’t seem to find room for his wings.

I’m passing by to look at the pearly irises,
the hood, the waxy white cere.

The pigeon fanciers pay no mind to us –
they breathe out mist in the cold,
their souls locked in the cages.

That’s fair enough.
It’s beautiful that way.

Cramped in these clothes meant for public eyes,
they are smoke, ill at ease,
staring down at their shoes,
and can’t seem to find room for their wings.

Track every sign the body dares confess.
Though wise men know the terms of flesh too well,
we strive to live beyond the warranty of cells.

Rich men have plasma shipped in cryogenic chests,
their bloodwork graphed in elegant blue curves.
Track every sign the body dares confess.

Poor men avoid the doctor – more or less,
they hope the ache will leave before their rent is due.
Live, live beyond the warranty of cells.

Wild men, once drunk on danger and excess,
now keep count of steps and steam their greens.
Track every sign the body dares confess.

Tech men insist that death can be addressed
despite the flaws our genome still conceals.
Live, live beyond the warranty of cells.

Let science spit into the eye of the abyss;
let every scan return another stolen year.
Track every sign the body dares confess.
Live, live beyond the warranty of cells.

facebook reminds me.

I am tempted to poke him,

but I have no idea what

that fb function means.

So, instead I wish

him one of the automated

greetings with emojis.

Brad went to Australia

instead of me.

My husband had to remind

me that my down under 

teaching adventure

was 86-ed because

we planned to get married

before my teaching assignment

began in September.

Australia was not willing

to pay for two American immigrants.

So, I stayed home

to teach part-time at universities.

That road not taken, all Brad’s.

He was the next in line.

That road taken for me,

unfolding still—

switchbacks, mountain highways,

France, Italy and Montreal,

gravel roads and clay dirt paths,

teaching, writing, singing, loving.

little one, know my heart is yours
who ever you are
wherever you are
sweet dreams, mon petit amour

may you be all you can be
well-loved, heathy, and happy
warm smiles and tender kindness
i share with you all my best

little one, know my heart is yours
who ever you are
wherever you are
sweet dreams, mon petit amour

as forever close as we can get
always so far apart in yet
we reach across the sands of time
you put your tiny hand in mine

little one, know my heart is yours
who ever you are
wherever you are
sweet dreams, mon petit amour

When I was born in 1949 there were two worlds, with many

old ways remaining alongside those of the new post war era.

My grandmother brought me from school on the trolley

to the last stop where she bought the afternoon NewsPress

for two cents before we walked the five blocks home.

Her parents, sister and often my brother and I stayed with her.

There was a piano, and a cupboard with cards and board games

that transformed a table into matches of Monopoly or Canasta.

I jumped rope and hopscotched in squares made with chalk.

My newly divorced mother drove our only car to work.

Under the avocado tree in the back yard, my brother and I

planted coleus and pansies, immersing our hands in dirt like

generations of our family who had farmed the land.

Television was new; we watched cartoons in the afternoon.

In the evening, the family gathered for the fifteen-minute news.

After my great grandfather died, my great grandmother loved

a Sunday drive for lunch at Van de Kamp’s with its car-side service.

We walked everywhere, to the library, to downtown, each evening

around the block, more slowly after my grandmother broke her hip.

Time came when, in her 90s, she could no longer walk at all.

My grandmother is gone now; so is my brother and my parents

along with the last vestiges of the old world I was born into.

My hometown lies under concrete, freeways and highrises.

I still hear my grandmother tell stories of fields of wildflowers, of

the pony bolting after school, overturning their carriage in a ditch.