October Moon and Sumac

Angel's Trumpet (Datura)

One Single Impression - Rest

(For Cassie)

For the sheer joy of it, your tail wagged,
and your magnificent nose was raised to
the scented air, your footfall blithe along
the trail, your wise eyes lifted to the birds,
the clouds above, the dancing stars.

Once (a very long time ago), you
showed me how to live in this world,
how to love it and taste its grandeur.
Now as you move clear eyed and firm
of step toward your final resting place,
I am learning a little how to die.

Written for the incandescent spirits at One Single Impression. A special note here, my darling Cassie is dying, and it hurts more than I can ever say or sing or write. These words emerged fully formed as I sat holding her in my arms a day or two ago.

Morning

Water Window

on hot still days in bright July,
I haunt these quiet flowing rivers,
their heron spiced shallows

deep shady pools like liquid glass,
darkened windows where trout
suspend and finning slowly dream

dawn, deer and wild turkeys drinking
pause, peering down and through,
and water serpents drowse at noon

sundown light and little frogs singing,
then the moon comes up like a
porcelain bowl adrift in a starry sea

(me)

Written for One Single Impression

Early Walkers

At dawn, a frail moon waning up there
somewhere in the unseen blue, blesses
a perfect summer day that will surely
never come again to sing, and slow

walkers in the early fog, we go together
paw and paw through summer yieldings
of sweet purple clover and rhyming
cricket, of humming bee and dancing leaf

while all around us, unseen but deeply
felt and loved, the world is breathing
in and out, our three voices falling
into seamless light and tune and time.

(Me)

All in the Patient Wanderer's Eye

all in the patient wanderer's eye,
these jester hat shapes of delicate columbines
unfurling, the lofty towers of rosy lupins
and crinkled poppies in the hedge at dawn,
cherry trees blooming overhead like confetti,
intensely purple violets in the grass.

between one sunrise moment and the next,
we stand here, she and I, looking upward
at these endless blue skies of infinite possibility,
these dancing spinneys of gently waving trees,
breathing in and out together, we go paw
and paw along - this is all there is.

Wind Horses

Sundown

Haiku - Change

windy night
uptown traffic lights changing
one by one

red, amber green
along the street they're turning
of their own accord

Written for the beauteous Andrée and Sandy at One Single Impression

Icicles and Branches

Snowy Cap

Rising Sun