And so I retired
from a work-a-day job, where I
slept through the night, got up with the sun
the rest somewhat measured, and there was fun  

now with no rigid timetable imposed
I am free to read poetry and prose
writing and learning the rules of the word
rhyming or free verse, whatever preferred  

Yet, within this time frame
it is true, I proclaim,  

There are more Doctors and Hospital stays,
scans, blood drawn, and aches with malaise  

Did my exposure to words
possibly take a grave toll
Perhaps ills are about
more than just getting old  

Yesterdays trip to a Nuclear Machine
that took scans of my heart and all in between  

They search for the why
this ticker beats fast
to telltale the reason
so this old heart will last  

The questionnaire had no place to explain
about rattles and chimes that burst into flame  

and exposure to millions of words and phrases
sending hearts travelling through so many mazes  

expressing a feeling or an idea being born
There’s nowhere to write that in a hospital form!  

How I wonder about that Super Sonic Nuclear Machine
How much can it capture, and what does it mean?

It might explain everything
What if they could find
Written within my body divine.

Words that stirred the soul

Verses that make the blood run cold

Rhymes that tear all insides apart

Sonnets that break my fast beating heart

“Get to the forest and breathe out,” my son says,
but instead, my aging legs curl in fetal position,
and I weep for everything I have no control over,
like a loved one dying, a friend’s imprisonment,
fear, depression, and world news, blood pressure
rising, anxiety pounding in head and chest, 
with nothing but trees to keep me from drowning,
and the constant downpour of rain to hold me.  

for AnR

Ocean to ocean 
he loves you. Pacific, At-
lantic. To home surf.

Some days, I am just water: sans weight and shape to favor buoyancy.

Zip me into my skin
Make me go unnoticed
Unheard.

Let the blood on my hands stop gushing.
Stitch me up with Candy floss.
Merri-go-round of Life.

Peel me like an orange.
Rip off the layers with your fingernails.
Too sweet.

Look in all the windows,
listen to the birds,
count the fireflies: four, five, there goes a rabbit.
Did you know I used to live in one of these houses?
I’d know it from the inside, if I saw it.
Watch the rain in the headlights, streetlights, nightlights
Nine PM hanging laundry, hemlock tree, moth in flight
Man on the phone, man on a bike,
then no one.
Red maple, silver maple, cricket song, when did it start?
Walk for miles and miles, no one can stop me,
not even the rain: so soft feel it on my fingers and my neck
10 PM shadows, no sign of the moon
Dog barks once for the fireworks and again for good measure
Too hot/too cold,
couldn’t be a gunshot must’ve been a firecracker
Night air on bare skin, pull up my jacket, walk for hours, get nowhere, turn around, 
go home.

The bees are steeping in midsummer’s
hum, hives with honeycombs like ocean
sponges shimmering with boxy drones.

Daisies convene in capricious clusters,
& cherries dangle, hard baubles with a sheen
of sun coating their ladybug roundness.

At twilight, I sit on the wall, stones still
warm from their love affair with sun,
& listen for night’s pealing.

I am rewarded with the notes the moon
drops, a white clattering on road, a pattering
on grass, a blazing aria that kisses my ears.

With screech owl’s tremolo & whinny,
this burning solo becomes a moth-tickled,
bat-crowned fugue until morning’s

apiary purrs resume, later to be infused
in humidity’s brew.

~inspired by the art of Janie Olsen

How it feels to walk with the wind

the way it flows through the hair on your arms

the way it passes through your palm

as if it’s extending out to hold your hand

Fluttering through your hair

whispering secrets from the sky

An interchange of breath between yours

and the world

How massive and elusive

allowing you to take space up with it

A force of ambiguous

Yet calm force and strength

you know the rest, come play along-
in your neighborhood?
I am not in mine, but nearly so after time, investment, sweat, labor
it is a birthed place; not native but neither have been any other of my
neighborhoods.
I wonder often
where is home
where is my neighborhood?
A longing, sure.
But more than that.
A purpose? A place with familiarity?
Do we all seek it, ache for it, or is it something gone the by and by
culture and society have changed.
We think we are in evolution but perhaps
we need to do a bit of devoluting?
Take the drive out of seeking
settle into the wonder of here and now.
These are the people of my neighborhood.

her body lays still, graying skin
and dying on the hospital bed
not even her lungs want to deliver
her air but we are all longing
for her to breathe