Last year there was a white squirrel
That lived in the tall sycamore trees on the little bank across the stream
He was a big belligerent fellow
I saw him for months, chasing and wrestling with his rivals on the ground and spiraling up and down the trees

I would watch him through my binoculars
And several times got a very good close up look
He was leucystic, not albino
White on top, brown legs and tail
Which is apparently more common
Some have red or blue eyes but I couldn’t see a squirrel eye at 250 yards, even with magnification

I spent a long time reading about white squirrels on the internet, as I would watch him
They’re not particularly rare, although I’d never seen one before
Some places have lots of white squirrels due to the genetics
I even reported him to the official white squirrel website (not joking)
I had some trepidation outing him, although I doubted anyone would sneak into the forested creekside back corner of my sister-in-law’s property, just to harass a squirrel

I’ve not seen him this year
And had to research how long a squirrel’s lifespan is in the wild
Many die early on, but if they live past 2 years, can live up to 8 years or so
I truly understood how the rare and precious sometimes don’t make it as long, as I marveled last year at how much his whiteness stood out against the drab yellow and brown of autumn
Wondering how a hawk or other sharp-eyed predator didn’t find him, when I could see him with my less acute human eyes, from all the way up the hill
So I suspect he didn’t make it
I have a vision in my head of him angrily barking at whatever got him, belligerent to the end
Because I like the thought of that end better, than illness, or cold, or falling

I saw a squirrel fall once
You’d think, with their athletic acrobatics, that it doesn’t happen
But this one misjudged the distance between the branches spanning the stone-fenced road
And I actually saw the look of surprise, the flailing feet before he crashed to the pavement, and unable to slow, I ran over him
It was almost like watching Wile E. Coyote run off a cliff – and I laughed and cussed at the same time

This morning I swear I saw a brief flash of white, twice, on the ground under the tall sycamore trees on the little bank across the stream
So maybe, just maybe, he survived the hard winter
Able to stand out against the autumn drabness for another season
Or maybe it was just wishful thinking
Only existing as a notation on a website about white squirrels

i miss the parts of me
that appear to have gone
missing

unnamed pieces agree
yet what i’ve lost i keep
forgetting

hollowed spaces dwell where
visions of vibrance danced
ignorantly

altered anatomy bears
muscle memory flex
indignantly

strength has grown where it must
bliss exchanged for wary
inclinations

articulation hushed
unnamed nastalgia now
beyond 
recognition

Juneteenth is a National Holiday
It’s a great time to
Celebrate, learn, and have fun

Learn from the past
Celebrate the present
Improve the future

We stand on our forefathers
And future generations will stand on ours 

Juneteenth is a National Holiday
Let’s have a great time 
Celebrate, learn, and have fun

From my Utah porch—
dry wind sighing through sage and juniper—
I close my eyesand drift back to Sierra Vista,
to the summer storms of Fort Huachuca,
where I once thought I’d spend my days,
where I still walk, sometimes,
when sleep lets me wander. 

The desert there is lush in memory—
palms shivering above emerald lawns,
monsoon clouds tumbling in
to wring the sun from the Mule Mountains,
softening every hard edge
with the promise of rain.

I remember mesquite
clinging to the canyons,
roots digging deep as longing,
sunlight filtering down
through cottonwood leaves—
all golden syllables and green undertones
in the half-light of memory.

If I am lucky in these dreams,
I return to Ramsey or Carr Canyon,
stand in the cool hush of shade
and watch hummingbirds—emerald, ruby-throated—
dart among the agave and lupine,
their wings whirring the air
into a prayer I never quite finish.

There are always the big bird spiders—
midnight black, slow as old regrets—
crossing the red earth
with all the shyness I know too well.
No poison, just presence,
just misunderstood gentleness
in a world too quick to judge.

But the sweetest part of my dreaming
is not the rain, nor the shimmer of hummingbird wings—
it is Nancy, my bright-eyed Nancy,
beside me in the shade,
her laughter rising above the chorus of cicadas,
our children—still small then—
racing ahead through the grass,
shouting at the first drops of rain,
gathering stones and memoriesby the handful.

For four beautiful years
the world was perfect—
just the four of us,
the hush of a canyon,
the promise of summer storms,
Nancy’s hand in mine
and the children’s laughter echoing off
mountains green with hope.

Now in Utah,
the world is dust and pale blue sky—
a far cry from those mountains
where rain fell like forgiveness,
where even the wind smelled green.

Yet some mornings,
when the clouds bunch over the Wasatch,
I taste that Arizona thunder on the air,
feel the weight of all I wanted—
lushness, wild mercy,
the gift of belonging
in a place, in a family,
in a moment that could not last.

Now Fort Huachuca lives
where longing lingers—
in the slow drift of clouds across Utah,
in the flash of a bird at the feeder,
in dreams that carry me
back to that mountain-framed promise
of green,of laughter,
of love still echoing
long after summer storms have gone. 

after Emily Dickinson

Chassis:

A four-leaf clover,
a bluebird in flight
omens from realms
unseen by mortal sight.

A breath of light
when weariness weighs,
a hush of healing
in fevered days.

Threads of the divine
woven in silence
angelic pulses,
shifts in frequency,
the shimmer of feathers
left like breadcrumbs on the path.

A penny glints in dusted gold
did you feel the nudge?
Did the veil grow thin?

Have you found the message
etched in wind,
carried in dream,
resting at the water’s edge?

Faith
the quiet flame
that guides us through
the shadows and the stars.

Have you found yours?
Perhaps…
a feather by a creek
was the answer all along.

the voice 
who spoke strange words
from my mouth 
was the god of clicks 
stops howls and hisses 

still nest nearby
when I come back in a year
I will get to see their steep wing span
and bright white heads
joining me in my return