Once I was a rucksack wanderer, hitching on the road like my “Beat” heroes.
In Kerouac’s “The Dharma Bums,” Japhy Rider (Gary Snyder) says,  “…I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution, thousands or even millions of rucksack wanderers…”
I read the words and followed.
Owning nothing but a rucksack, hiking shoes, jeans, a blue work shirt, and a pup tent; I was 27, escaped from teaching high school English in Iowa and ready to live. 
So we meandered up the East coast, into Canada, hitching rides, sleeping under bridges, in packing crates, on sand dunes, in the woods; sailing to islands on ferry boats; relying on the good will of strangers, which never failed. 
Decades later, a therapist told me I must have had a death wish, putting myelf in danger like that. Danger? Never thought about it. I was busy being a rucksack wanderer. Adventure was my middle name.

late again
in trouble for reading
Ferlinghetti
all night with another
rogue poet

i used to dream we lived in a house of
sorrow i searched night after night in room after
room grown smaller and smaller to find your spring birdsong
voice and your summer blue eyes

i was so careful with our sorrow i carried
it cradled it crawling through our shrinking twisting
house on my belly squeezing through broken doors into secret halls
collapsing under the weight of loss

on my last night in this house of dreams still on
my belly still all alone i found a door in the dark i stood
i stepped into it stumbled through onto a staircase spiraling away from the
red autumn day when i survived you

on my feet i climbed up and out of this house to a place
of new promise where those moonless black nights are become
shining blue skies on clear winter mornings with bright window glass warming me
but i still love you and still want our years

You sense them in the air, wet nostrils flaring
Nosing through the back door crack
Steadfast and still, ears alert, eyes sharpened 
To survey your kingdom and all things wild

Motion stops, everything stands still
Squirrels twitch with anticipation
Bunnies cease their munching
Bird song quiets as they all wait to see

Like a shot, you aim your mark
Today, the squirrels on the feeder
Mocking you again with their
Portly bodies and bottle brush tails

To the fence and the trees they retreat
Escaping your speed and obsession
Hearts pounding from the chase
To wait you out and return to their heist

You saunter away with sexy indifference
Smug in your feeder-saving conquest
You climb the stairs and take your throne
Biding time for the next careless creature to move

Soaking in the lake
Under the sun
Needed respite
Day of fun
Awesome landscape
Yields peaceful heart

The bumblebee
Flies by with glee

Its bounty brings
A sneeze to me

Drowsy in the black cradle
of a nighttime car, I watch yellow 

patches of street light slide
by, wash over me in brief

bright pulses until, abruptly,
they stop. My sister rouses  

beside me and yawns, Daddy, 
why aren’t we moving?   

From behind the wheel, our father
watches the taillights of his mother’s  

car, wondering the same thing.
We’ve been caravanning

back from some weekend
adventure, but now we stop  

and remain stopped. Finally
my grandmother steps out

onto the shoulder. Dad follows,
and they speak muffled words

behind the car door. A bump,
they say, a dog, and 

Is it wearing a collar?
My mother silently exits  

the vehicle, returns a moment later.
I want to see the dog, I say. I love dogs.  

No, she gently scolds. Not this one.
Daddy and Grandma are trying  

to get a number, knock
on a front door, make a phone call.   

Is it still alive?
Yes. Barely.  

I say, We should take it to the vet,
but her answer is, No,  

honey. It won’t live that long,
which makes me sad, imagining 

a cute dog lying there, still
soft and warm, wearing the collar 

someone who loved it
buckled around its neck,  

but drawing helpless last
breaths because we won’t even try

to take it to the vet.
We wait and wait until

the owners show up. No one
ever lets me see the dog,  

and Grandma, who loves
all God’s creatures, even mice  

and spiders, cries and cries,
and I sit still

holding the pink stuffed
animal she gave me that day,

wishing I could just see that dog,
but everything is dark.

with the mockingbird? Is there a warmth tucked among 
its feather–dress that knows dawn’s cold 
will flee like the patio’s puddles?  

Is God in the song it shouts to the geese, married 
in the sky, and to every bird that homes in on 
the neighbor’s pond this morning?  

And to what purpose the high-wire hop—a one-bird 
showstopper to help this gray world to a smile? 
Lower than the angels we certainly are,  

but around us on our green trampoline a host of spotters— 
both feathered and earth-bound—circles, loyal to their  
service they keep wise watch and sow blessing. 

The Basin of the Hollow

The Appalachians are the only foundations
that refuse to shatter when I lean.

I pressed back into the hills
and they held—
not with gentleness,
but with stone’s slow,
unyielding patience.

When every room feels too small
for what I carry,
the mountains widen around me
and “too much” shrinks to scale—
a hollow the hills know how to cradle.

The basin never spilled me out.

These are the only monoliths
large enough
to meet me eye to eye.

The stove eats wood.
The flatbreads smell of sugar.
Pots of stew
foretell the future.
Grandma dries clothes inside,
and sheets of yufka,
trays, and the heads of freshly bathed children.
Outside, the wind keeps knocking its forehead
against our house.

A a butterfly, a toad, and a soul sleep in the earth.

Uncle tells his slow stories,
gathered from people’s homes and woods.
Whatever happens, it’s all good,
and all people are good.

The women keep knitting long memories
and vivid dreams of the dead.
Jars of honey lined up by the fire,
a scratch at the back of my throat.

My mother left me
sweets, and words, and dresses…
I’m a big girl now
but these women still watch over me
as if I were a kitten.
They sprinkle sugar on the woodstove
when I have a stuffy nose,
and I breathe in the black smoke as a cure.

They whisper their dark little charms.

I listen to grandma, to the wind and the stove.
I don’t want these words to run out.
This nose of mine whistling along with the kettle,
and this scratch at the back of my throat.