Telltale

Side-plastered tree trunks tell 

which way the wind blew the falling snow.

Laundry Lines

I give the green towel a 

whip S N A P!

to stand the pile up and 

shake out wrinkles 

before I hang it on the drying rack.

Whip S N A P!

I’m six years old watching my mother 

hang laundry on the outdoor line

handing her coil spring clothes pins --

was it just a 1960s housewife thing

or was she, too, coping with a broken dryer?

Sun After Snow

The eleven year old boy 

points across the pasture

“It looks like some girl 

came and poured glitter all over it!”

Greener Grass

I need nothing.

There sits my car, tank full

but I’ve no need to go out --

luxurious!

Understand;

this is a thing of choosing --

next moment I may be as discontented

as any fence-side cow.

Notice

Halfway home on the forest trail 

I notice that I’m walking blind,

everything I’m noticing is in my head.

He said..., She said..., They’ll think....

Breathe!  Be here!  Be now!

Notice the robins bursting aloft.

Notice the bare frozen slope.

Windy

Clots of cumulous bluster eastward 

pulling apart like unspun wool opening 

blue eyes, remass, close ranks, open over there

and there.  Pines twist and sway, think

about picking up their roots and waltzing

over the ridge after them.

Mumbling Kettle

The mumbling of the teakettle

keeping warm on the back burner,

ticking of the cast iron frying pan 

heating on the front burner.

Heaven Rushing In

Feet planted on duff and stone

arms raised, a great bowl, to the gray sky

I choose to receive truth

I choose to receive my lost energy

deer snort off to the left

snowflakes drift down.

Lacework

Dirt road strewn crisscross 

with slender ponderosa needles

this morning the upper layers

are snow pellet laden 

yet the dark ground is bare.

A Decade in the Weather

On the cedar bird feeder’s gabled roof

deep green paint gives way to bare

gray patches and colonizing yellow lichen.

Wishing for Binoculars

Gray bird against gray sky

amongst gray twigs of hawthorn copse

warbling so softly with beak closed

I assume the call is a more distant bird 

‘til I see tail twitches marking time.

It flies cross the road to join another, 

together they fly back again uttering

single louder cries “whoot....whoot....”

At home with field guides and internet

photos, descriptions and recordings

I come up empty handed with no 

name for the bird in the bush.

Choice

Complicated, anxious day

press the silver start button

clothes dryer responds with silence.

Pause.

Breathe.

I could let this be the straw 

that broke the camel’s back --

but what would that attract?

Half Light

Dim blue morning --

the glass is both

window and mirror.

After Chores

Sitting on the concrete step

purring the porch cats

getting muddy paw prints 

on old holey jeans.

Lichen on Hawthorn

Mustard yellow lichen trumpets

clump thick around thorn base and 

twig branching on these old low 

roadside hawthorn limbs,

each minuscule cone brimful in

morning’s saturated atmosphere.

Home From Walking

Entering kitchen, glasses fog up

cold nose and cheeks throb with heat

unwinding scarf, noticing

dishes, papers, laundry.

The last half hour I’ve been far away --

this room is a foreign land.

River of Wind

River of wind

rushing through the pine tops,

in the garden the wind chime

swings like a fishing lure.

Sitting on a Hillside in February

At the house the thermometer reads 20ºF,

here hour-old sun reaches between pines

exorcising frost from fallen needles.

On flatish ground above a boulder

my daypack becomes a make-do zafu

I sit gloves off, jacket hanging open, 

morning’s radiance a roiling glory

soaking through closed eyelids. 

Vacant Winter Greenhouse

On the corner of the cedar slat work bench

a cobalt bottle glints in the sun’s final rays,

a dusty spider web hammock

wafts sine waves in the window corner.

Cat Knitting

Long haired kitten cat

fine and soft in my lap 

like a purring skein of angora.

Liquid Drops

Liquid drops at needle ends

found to be ice on the tongue

melting into a trace of pine.

Proof of Passage

Snowy patches in the road 

ribboned with muddy treadweaves.