“…deregulation would drive “a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.” –EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin; as quoted in the New York Times, May 24, 2025, on the gutting of power plant regulations  

* * *

I sing from my hymnal of data points
collected high atop Mauna Loa
lonely high notes burned clean of hope
spiraling, they scald my throat              

                            [and still: I believe]
  

My faith is evidence-based
it warms me like heat warnings
wilting Alaska in June;
it stings my eyes like orange-brown
clouds of wildfire smoke
rolling across Iowa              

                           [I weep and I believe]


My prayer book bids me 

Do not pollute the land where you are  

My prayer book chides me
Do not defile the land where you live              

                           [so long as I believe, I shall not be lost]
  

My religious mission, to listen 
to the birds of the sky (even as the sky empties)  
and to witness the fish perishing in hotter seas
(oceans heating, coral reefs bleaching)              

                           [I believe and I weep]   

My morning prayer: may seeds
of weedy sense be rooted
in the soil beneath us all—even
those most greedily deluded              

                           [somehow, I believe]    

The time has come (as Matthew forewarned) to beware 

false prophets, who come dressed in sheep’s clothing 

but inwardly are ravenous wolves—

hungry ghosts, I call them       
                          [their daggers cannot touch me, so long as I believe]
  

Half Cassandra; half 

Tipp’n
They be tripp’n

It’s out of hand
I don’t get it, man

Tipp’n is given
For service above and beyond

I order food on an app
Picked it up at the counter

Screen screams
10%
15%
20%
No Tip

It stares me down
Like a gunman in an old western
Daring me not to tip and walk away

I grab my food 
Run for the door
Never look back

Safe in my car
I exhale

They got me tripp’n
With all this tipp’n

I ordered the food
Paid for it
Picked it up

Why am I tripp’n
Over not tipp’n

Raised on images of women told to hide their magic
Shaped by legends of men bewitched by feminine power
Taught to distrust my own knowledge and experience
Betrayed by my own words, movements, and choices
My unwieldy body not trustworthy, not mine at all
Always the root cause of every failure of man

Groomed from infancy to keep secrets and serve others
Women are taught to hate themselves
Simultaneously too much and not enough
Never able to master the challenge of just right
Never worthy, never a priority
Not even to ourselves

The stories forced on us make it so hard to tell our truth
Cardboard cutouts our only pattern
Our stories, oft hidden within soap bubble fantasy for our safety,
dismissed, derided, and disbelieved
I own my privilege but
White feminism exploited me too

How does one get old?
Is it secret poisoning?
Or fullness of bloom?

My first haiku.

June forecasts taught us to look up 
and around    to empathize with the unseen

Wisdom came to our front porch steps
   brought baubles and pearls    from the myth to the real

Reminders that the best poems come
    when we’re being ourselves        revised 4-5 times but unedited

We ordered pancakes, grits and garden greens
    played checkers with Persephone    shared a smoke, then a “see you soon”

Sandia songs from enchanted mountains
    songs of hope, of finding our way    filled the valley from afar        

Stories told line by line
    of an America    we can all feel

Everyday haiku humor brought us closer
    to what matters    to the interior

We found the freedom to think of ourselves
    a little less        and just let the river flow 

As the Crow flies
    out into the frontiers       savoring the poems

Special thanks to: Michelle LeNoir, E.E. Packard, Yersinia P, Shaun Turner, Greg Friedman, Pam Campbell, Lav, Bud R, & Mary Allen for their uplifting comments and amazing poetry all month. You’ve inspired me and taught me so much this month thank you!

To all LexPoMo Poets, new and returning vets, I want to say thank you for filling this poetry month with your voices and creativity

And to Chelsea, for letting me read these poems out loud to her and for being our biggest fan, thank you. 

Mid-day summer hike

The song of the tanager

Is the only sound

When times are most dire,
at least one saving grace is ours
if we can muster the strength
to claim it:

that bad politicians
facing next elections
share a similar weakness
with bed bugs.

While always best
not to get bitten,
they do become much,
much easier
to crush
when engorged on our blood.

carve me from your sculpting block,
o Artist. chisel any blemishes from your
sight, for i am yielded to your tools; bare to

the Sculptor is my marble form.
like michelangelo and his david,
would you rid of me the pieces that

aren’t of you? i promise not to mourn
what is shorn from my marbline mold.
instead i rest in tender hands marked

by garnet wounds, for i am fashioned
gradually to the living stone you had
in mind. radiant in your eyes, gleaming bright.

I had completed my task
dispersing my offerings
my colors well positioned
I was free for other things

I hovered the surfaces
retracing my steps
in a reluctance to leave
falling out of my depth

One mis-step I took
when I did not look
where I stumbled through
the color Blue

In regal silence it had presided
impasto plump – lying in wait
this slow drying meat eater
waiting for prey – touched my fate

oil soaked by this chance encounter
stained blue cloaked and glazed
whispering promises of infinity
I drew back covered and dazed

A close brush with Blue
its beauty cancels all sin
it is good to be in paradise
if only now and then

(from the point of view of a paint brush)