What: Removing spent blooms where they meet the stem.

When: Wait til they are dead or have been dying– Petals dried or drying, wilting. From spring to late fall. The flesh just underneath has yellowed or browned.

Why: If you don’t, the plant will convince itself its days of production are ending. You can have blooms through Thanksgiving. Or you can have a dead plant. Your call.

Where: On your garden’s edge of lullaby. Long before the stem browns toward the earth to slowly ease the plant to sleep.

How: Always remove just the head.

Note: If you’re learning the art, and pull one section of a starter marigold up from the rest, try replanting that piece elsewhere, for a bonus surprise plant.

Results of all above efforts: New buds appear after a couple good rains or a couple nights, whichever comes first.

Bright sunshine and lemonade on cool grass

Warmth spreading across my chest

Wide smiles, wet teeth

You’re everything to me

Familiarity, sincerity

Laughter bubbling out of our mouths

The gurgling of your stomach

I never want to leave

Trilling of a phone line

Spitting rain and heavy air

That ever present longing

I never want to be without you

Even on the dark days

With hope nowhere to be found

You make everything better 

Fates intertwined 

A soul cut in two

We were meant to find each other

A time comes when one begins
To wonder
Which of your things
Your kids will someday want.

Should I keep this
For the kids
Someday
Or pitch it?

Sometimes they tell you.
“Dad, don’t sell that painting,I want it.”
Or “I’ll never want that rocker,
You can pitch it.”

I did not know how often
The question crossed my mind,
Until my daughter was gone.

And the question,
When it came,
Had an answer.

He was a restless soul
Eager to fly free, to fly far
Away, across the plains.
Regretfully, I let him go—
Too fearful of long journeys
And too preoccupied at home.
Childhood crushes may fade,
His memory has not.
Even today.

black mold grows
in an old notebook…
abandoned 

lost women bag
ladies carry bundles
of grief  and broken 

baubles 

magic
women in ballet shoes 
and boots 

psychopaths in cemeteries 

suicidal mothers lured by 
blue bottles of 
lye leaving orphans 

on the street begging

mitochondrial DNA   
               dripping
                                indigo
over the moon’s wrinkled
                 face

Revenge
                    Let it Go

Rains gushed out
of the darkened sky
heavy in its pour,  not
like the stream of a watering can,
not like the dousing of holy water,
the drip of a rotted hose.
The torrential drenching created
streams and creeks, angry rivers
cresting as the moon hung low,
moving beyond the
edge of comfort.
Downpours cascaded
as if the captains cried deep 
tears of remorse,
submerging the earth
forcing rockslides, mudslides,
erasing roads to nowhere
creating sinkholes under the
floods.
Sins and sinners soaked in
the rebellious nature of the
downpour while others
prepared for 
the change, the aftermath,
clouds promise to dissipate
with warmth, the earth
dries her wounds,
mothers scrub kitchen floors,
old soldiers find their way home,
writers and artists typeset
the skies with magical discourse,
the magnolia trees bloom
in unison.

The cards have been all over the table for two weeks now.
We’ve certainly felt their presence as we’ve carefully navigated each other
and have picked up a few, shuffled them, here and there.
The kids have knocked them onto the floor, mixed them up.  A few might be under the couch now.
But the box is lost; there’s no longer a neat way to pack them all away
something must be done with them.
I approached it as I do everything – by writing.

In our younger years
I used to write you letters to explain how I was feeling
rather than take the risk of talking
Now I have said it all
I write to clarify, confirm, document
To stop you from recoiling into denial
To cover my ass
To propel us
forward.

Where? Damned if I know
some space between married and divorced
until another path appears
but we can’t just leave this stuff laying all over the place.
That’s what we always tell the kids.
And we both know
I’m the one
who always picks it up.  

Here’s to the Catalysts,
To those who keep the embers
of our souls burning when they
almost
fall
to
ash
or rather, set the forest aflame
with their unforgettable flint