01 Monday Aug 2022
Posted in Poetry
30 Saturday Jul 2022
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, Alone, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Eternity, Fathers, Infinite, Life, Loneliness, Longing, Losing, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Regret, Soul, Souls, Yearning
oh, they are right
with their cliches and memes
about how you will regret
when they’re gone
the missed opportunities
to hold them
to ask them
to listen
yes, it is obvious
isn’t it
but you are doomed
like I was
to never fully understand
the precious lives
so goddam important
to your own
so ubiquitous of shared moments
it is impossible to appreciate
their value
yes, it’s true
you’ll only know on the other side
of losing
welcome to being human
you will find it is full
of regrets
29 Friday Jul 2022
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, Dad, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Eternity, Fathers, Hope, Infinite, Life, Loss, Love, Love Poems, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Survival, wolfhound, Wolfhounds
Some gifts are better than others,
The way I saw your heart extend
Into past memories of her—
Tears from your uncrying eyes—
Her loss was the one loss
That broke you like that,
Like that,
The sobbing unashamed.
And then, it’s as if we fast forward
The great movie of our lives together:
You’re dying,
I’m a middle-aged woman.
You give me a dog.
A wolfhound,
Like the one whose loss broke you
Way back then. Riagan. Riagan.
Whose eyes held our gaze,
Whose eyes sought to impart wisdom;
Perhaps, her eyes saw beyond this life,
To where you are now.
Wouldn’t it be something
If our lives are that special,
They continue forever,
Two points–three–an infinity of dots
On some great line that extends forever.
12 Tuesday Jul 2022
Posted in Poetry
24 Tuesday May 2022
Tags
Attention, clouds, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Earth, Hope, Life, Loss, Mindfulnesses, Murder, Poem, Poems, Poetry, School Shooting, Souls, Uvalde Texas, Yearning
Would our lives be better
If we paid attention
Each drip drip
Each rustle and bow of leaves
The branches of the pine are dancing
To a song in 4/4 time
So is the purple sand cherry, dancing
Clouds upon clouds upon clouds
Let me describe them:
flat, dark bottoms, mountainous tufts
Bodies extending far into the sky
For sun, sun lighting up their top halves
I should say, the earth side is ominous
The heavenward side, radiant
Would you know what I mean
Today, of all days
When so many innocent are dead
Why wouldn’t they turn their eyes away
And hope for something better
23 Monday May 2022
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, Death, Death Poems, Doe Mountain, Dying, Father, Infinite, Life, Loss, Love, Memory, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Spirits
Moments, so beautiful they are painful,
Unless you take a deep breath
And carry them into your heart & lungs
Where they mix with the sweet oxygen
Of your body’s blood, pulse, beat, throb.
And you think, I will keep this, Lord,
Help me keep the memory of it,
Let me be changed forever to the goodness,
Yes, even the holiness of this moment.
(Because what is this, if not sacred?)
A poem can keep it, too, and as I read back,
I feel you in the flashing memory spots,
Where touch and sight and smell,
Ignite the latent feeling of you, still alive.
There you are, rising with other wonders:
The geese, flying through basalt cliffs,
The view, after ascending Doe Mountain,
The ocean, when I had not seen the ocean.
There you are among it all, in my mind,
And I can feel your love from this far away.
12 Thursday May 2022
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, Beauty, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Happiness, Hog Lake Falls, Hope, Infinite, Life, Loss, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, prairie smoke, Prayer, Sacred, Soul, Soul Poetry, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Spring, spring poem, Survival, The Universe, Truth, Yearning
Hog Lake Falls, a cool breeze,
One single, solitary swan.
I think I see him preening
From this vantage, far away.
Last time I hiked here, you’d just died,
And I thought, how lovely to know
I can bring you with me,
Free of the dying chair,
The dying bed, the whole dying room,
And house, where you’d locked yourself away.
Such days are ripe with feeling alive:
Prairie smoke droop their heads,
Their beautiful faces turned down,
As they wait for the kiss of a bee.
Then they will finally look up at the sky,
Say one last prayer, go to seed.
01 Friday Apr 2022
Tags
Alone, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Grief, Healing, Life, Loneliness, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Spring, Survival, Yearning
They say,
There are five stages to grief;
All, feel terrible;
Where’s the relief?
When can we expect
To accept the loss of being
Who we were together.
The knowing alone–
Is that it, the end;
Is it final?
Mending spirit,
Where are you now?
Are the returning birds
Too loud to hear?
The Sun, too bright
To see?
The wind, too cold
To feel you?
14 Monday Mar 2022
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, Belief, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Eternity, Heaven, Hope, Infinite, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Sacred, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Survival, The Universe
If there’s a heaven,
Who’s to say
It’s not right here,
Next to us,
Rather than far away?
Another dimension,
Our souls
Walk through at death,
More whole,
than in life.
Scientists say,
Our lives replay,
As we pass,
They can map
Our brain’s waves,
An almighty flash
Of memory cells,
Flashing.
What’s that about,
If not
Making us better?
And so
I talk to him,
In woods and fields,
My father,
Who loved woods
And mountaintops,
And me,
Less alone than before
He walked across,
Or flew across,
Or emerged across
The invisible line
Between life
And death,
The breadth of which,
Seems smaller
Than I knew before.
03 Thursday Feb 2022
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, Aging, Beauty, Belief, Children, Death, Dying, Eternity, Family, Gratitude, Hope, Life, Loss, Love, Memory, Mothers, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Spirits
In the end, we don’t know
How the end will come,
Peaceful, as we sleep,
Or, under the thumb
Of morphine. Memories,
Like flotsam, from the depths
Of our once bright existence,
Form a tunnel toward our exit,
Each day, one step closer,
Almost touching what was lost:
mother, child, father.
02 Sunday Jan 2022
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Aging, Belief, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Eternity, Fear of Death, Infinite, Life, Loss, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Survival, Winter poem
A fog over the snow-covered hills
Of the Palouse, loosed delineation
Of hill and road and sky,
It seemed an infinity of cloud,
A shroud, over our eyes,
As we returned from a ‘last visit,’
The one where we said ‘goodbye.’
A great chain is about to snap,
The ties that bind crackle,
Grow weak, tremble, cry:
This too shall pass, everything must die,
But at last, we don’t believe it’s true,
Do we? Life is all we’ve known,
And its roads extend for our ever,
And ‘our ever,’ doesn’t come to a tidy end,
But it does begin to blur at the edges.
11 Saturday Dec 2021
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Death, Death Poems, Dying, Family, Forgiveness, Life, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Song of Sorrow and Joy, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Yearning
IV
Sit, and let me sing you a song,
Of our perfection,
And our imperfections:
No species sucks so bad
At getting what we want—
I’ll title it, Love.
Realization must come
Too late, or it’s not human.
Only in losing do we understand
The full measure of what we had,
Basically, chances, and with chance,
The opportunity to grasp —
It—
And I’m back to the title of the song—
Love,
And how we suck at it.
11 Saturday Dec 2021
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Children, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Forgiveness, Grace, Life, Longing, Loss, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Song of Sorrow and Joy, Soul, Souls, Spirit
III
And now, I pause
at the feet of your memory:
Your laughter,
before there was nothing
To laugh about,
Your strength,
Your fatal optimism in your strength.
I’ve learned,
Being a rock, a steady hand
Wasn’t always conducive
To being a full man.
And there is the regret,
(Mine, not yours),
But it’s too late for regrets.
We are who we are,
And so little escapes that reality;
What forms us,
Forms all others, formed me.
Sometimes, we are left to weep
at what could have been:
We could have called,
We could have written,
We could have cherished,
The moments we came
Wanting to be cherished.
I misspoke,
When I said imperfections fade away–
They don’t,
But there is no anger,
Only a dull futility:
The reality that is, versus
What we hoped it would be.
11 Saturday Dec 2021
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Death, Death Poems, Dying, Family, Fathers, Fear of Death, Forgiveness, Happiness, Infinite, Love, Memory, Parents, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Song of Sorrow and Joy, Soul, Souls, Spirit
II.
I’ve seen enough of spirit to know
that you’ll still be here
when I write of letting go.
How love becomes energy,
And energy can’t be destroyed.
The power of memory:
Imperfections, fade away,
Only Love remains,
As a steady anchor,
A steady hand through—
It’s been a while
since I’ve seen you laugh,
(There’s not much joy in dying,)
Yet, I remember your laughter, too,
Your tears wiped away from crying.
And it makes me smile now,
How we watched you break down,
Such a serious father,
Completely undone
By your laughter.
10 Friday Dec 2021
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Death, Death Poems, Dying, Eternity, Family, Fear of Death, Forgiveness, Life, Loss, Love, Love Poems, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Sacred, Song of Sorrow and Joy, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Yearning
“Once I heard a song of sweetness,
As it cleft the morning air,
Sounding in its blest completeness,
Like a tender, pleading prayer;
And I sought to find the singer,
Whence the wondrous song was borne,
And I found a bird, sore wounded,
Pinioned by a thorn.”
I.
The song of joy comes
From the same place as sorrow:
All losses bound together
With all gifts,
Wonder and tragedy,
Sifted, then mixed.
I will hurt no more, I said,
And it was as if my soul
Was dead to happiness, too.
But now I stand,
Ready to let go of you.
05 Sunday Dec 2021
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Death, Death Poems, Dying, Loneliness, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Yearning
These silent months:
No keys
Struck,
No strings
Plucked,
Or strummed,
No words strung together
To write a poem.
Said another way,
Everything that heals
Has faded away.
Yet, here I am again
Trying to make sense
Of the void.
Loss,
There is so much to lose,
We are willing to toss away now.
Have I tossed away now–
The joy of now–
Because I am afraid of losing?
Letting go, letting go, letting go…
Keep saying that,
One hundred times,
Then more.
13 Friday Aug 2021
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Death, Death Poems, Dying, Gratitude, Infinite, Loss, Love, Love Poems, Mt Spokane, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Souls, Spirit, Yearning
“I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down –”
I will trace your body with my fingers,
I will kneel before you with cupped hands,
Because that’s what it is to love,
To memorize this moment we inhabit,
To see your chest rise and fall
In mutual breath and beating hearts.
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
All those who have passed, there,
beyond the smoke, is the mountain:
Minutes, seconds, days, and months
Turn to years, but always the mountain,
Who recognizes only eternity.
And here, we embrace in its shadow,
Speak words, like living things do.
Comfort, does it comfort you
to hear your name spoken from my lips,
To know, someone will fall down
When you’re gone?
*Italics are verses from, The Summer Day, by Mary Oliver
13 Sunday Jun 2021
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Belief, Death, Death Poems, drought, Dying, God, Heat, Hope, Horse Poem, Horse Poems, Horse poetry, Horses, Life, Loss, Love, Miracles, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Prayer, Sacred, Sun, Survival, weeds
Drought year,
Everything is dying early.
We realize what is hearty,
And what is not.
Weeds, they multiply,
Even after we spray,
As if they know,
This is their time.
They sink taproots,
And suckle what is left
Of underground aquifers.
We’re breaking heat records in June;
The sweltering, unrelenting sun
Is just getting started.
How many trips to the barn,
Down this cackling road?
The day I saw the barn cat
Kill father Robin–
It was an ominous sign
For the foal.
And then I succumbed
To this hackling cough.
Death is a time for prayer,
Calling out
for whatever hope God can spare.
Cries sent, not into a dark night,
But a hideous brightness.
13 Sunday Jun 2021
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Death, Death Poems, Dying, Fear, Fear of Death, Hope, Horses, Life, Loss, Love, Miracles, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Prayer, Souls, Survival, Yearning
When death gets a foothold,
You don’t know who it will take.
Souls grow heavy with guilt,
And the weight of silence.
Hope, a fragile light;
It fuels us.
Small, but mighty.
We wait for miracles;
They are fickle things,
Miracles.
23 Saturday Jan 2021
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Ash, Beauty, Bird Poems, Bowl and Pitcher, Courage, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Fear of Death, Healing, Hope, Life, Moss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Ponderosa, River, Soul, Souls, Spokane, Spokane River, Strength, Suicide, Survival, Winter, Winter poem, Yearning
I wonder how many have plunged,
broken bodies against the steep,
unforgiving basalt, to flow far away
from the tether of this rocky outcrop.
There are worse places to die
than underneath a basking ponderosa,
on a glorious day in deep winter,
high, above the earth’s mucosa.
Here is heaven, its gods, the osprey and eagle;
they preside from piney thrones, regal,
and survey with indifferent contemplation;
from their perch, suffering is also celebration.
There are less noble ways to die,
than beneath the wings of geese.
See them glide peacefully
over the rapids of the Spokane,
rage of water in the ears,
shiver of blue sky, full sun.
Yet, if hopeless traveler made the steep climb
to this one, celestial throne:
its blood, a brilliant green moss,
its body, the bare, leafless skeleton of alumroot,
entreating with outstretched arms:
See, the promise of spring.
If they were to navigate loose rock,
on the treacherous path that leads here,
would it be enough to make them cling
to the rock wall in front of me,
this low, precarious barrier between?
Bits of Poetry 