and there
you are again
in memory
a bird at night
I think I see fly
from tree to tree
a shadow really
a blink
a blur of air
a longing
it isn’t fair to miss
you, like this
This Missing
20 Tuesday Jan 2026
Posted in Poetry
Tag Archives: Memory
Missed Opportunities With Her
05 Friday Jan 2024
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Death, Death Poems, decisions, Dying, Hard Decisions, Heartache, Loss, Love, Memory, Now, Piper, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Spirit, Time
The nows you missed with her are real,
But yesterday and tomorrow are not.
What’s done is done, at least,
In this world. What do you want
To take with you to the other side?
Or, be there waiting for you, beyond time?
Tick, tick, tick, then it stops,
What do we find beyond the ticking?
Everything is a choice, even sitting here
Now, click, click, clicking this poem.
Are all poems messages to the great unknown?
Future me, which does not exist,
Might read one, many years from now,
And wonder if she adequately loved
What was sent to her as a gift to be loved.
The real moments: tick tick and click clicking,
That come, come, come to us–
Then disappear,
Like she has.
Winter Blind
24 Thursday Nov 2022
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, Alone, Death, Death Poems, Eternity, Heaven, Hope, Ice, Infinite, Life, Loneliness, Loss, Love, Memory, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Sacred, Snow, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, The Universe, Winter, Winter poem
A white blanket was pulled over
Our homes, the earth, our heads,
As effortless as sliding on ice,
As uncontrollable as dying.
And, it was hard to see beginnings
Of fields, or endings of hilltops;
In that way, it was a blur of (also white) fog.
Who’s to say what lay behind it?
The infinite forever of lost souls–?
Just there, and there, look where
My finger is pointing, beyond the trees.
I see myself only as far as the fence-line.
All else sparkles back, a vision
Of what is here, and what has been here,
Always within the margin
Of what we can so easily see.
Love Letters
04 Thursday Aug 2022
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, Death, Death Poems, Fathers, Forgiveness, Hope, Letters, Loneliness, Loss, Love, Love Letters, Love Poems, Lovers, Memory, Mothers, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Survival
Whisper me a tale of lovers,
Through limbs of trees and years,
Rattle a leaf, turn a page,
Rifle through an abandoned dresser.
You will find them there among socks,
With no feet left to cover.
The body is taken away,
Yet, rises again in pen.
She recognizes the scrawl,
It is as much him as him,
And hymn to her hurting heart.
You realize love too late,
She thinks, beyond the day-to-day
Bicker and fuss, we lost us-–
She sees her lover now,
In what is left undone–
The many things he touched
And with his touch, flourished,
They wilt now that he’s gone.
Yet, in her hands,
She holds his scribbled words:
Nineteen sixty three, nineteen sixty four–
And, it all comes back to her.
How We Keep It
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.
What Was Lost in the Trade
15 Sunday May 2022
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Children, Division, Divorce, Family, Hate, Healing, Life, Longing, Loss, Love, Love Poems, Marriage, Memory, Mothers, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Sacred, Self, Souls, Women's Poems, Yearning
The push, and pull, of memory,
When you left me I got sadness, despair,
When I left you, I got amnesia.
Be careful what you forget,
Memories, hostage to one another,
Shoved into the abyss, together they go,
What was beautiful, too,
The joy of holding his babies at my breasts,
The sound of love in first words;
Hope, like a childhood dream,
You’re embarrassed you believed.
And now, no plumbing the hole
With dirty hands, arms not long enough
To reach what was so easily given away;
(The hurt was not traded for living,
As I’d hoped,) no, I want them all back,
Though they bring you, with the sadness, too.
Toward Our Once Bright Existence
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.
The Not So Little Things
29 Wednesday Dec 2021
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Aging, Death, Family, Fathers, Forgiveness, Happiness, Hope, Life, Love, Memory, My Dad, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Souls, Survival, Winter
“Weep for what little things could make them glad. Then for the house that is no more a house. (Directive, Robert Frost)
1.
The frosty backs of horses at the bale,
The red fence, framing the snow,
This is the beauty I found
In the extreme cold
of December.
And I remember
Wishing for it.
2.
Do you want to save this bird,
It was a falcon,
And it ran, with broken wing,
At the edge
Of a barbed wire fence.
He asked me, as he knew
I was a lover of wild things,
And a nurturer of broken wings.
I do, I said, I do.
Then, he was out of the car,
Walking among snow
And wounded bird.
I watched him from the backseat,
The car, I would someday wreck.
But that day, it was whole,
And we were whole,
And he returned, victorious,
Gloved hands,
Cradling broken bird.
3.
I don’t know why he gave it to her,
But she was in possession
Of his cowboy hat,
And she knew
I was the one who wanted it.
I was in possession of money,
And funny prankster that she was,
My sister knocked on my bedroom door.
She was having a yard sale in her room,
And I was invited to shop.
I can’t remember how much I spent,
But the hat became mine,
and I was wearing it.
He laughed when he saw me,
His big hat on my small head,
And heard the story of its quick journey
From her to me–
He’d given it to her for free–
But I didn’t care,
I wore that damn hat everywhere.
4.
Before I wrecked his car,
I slid his truck off an icy road
At two am, in a snowstorm.
I remember hiking to the first house,
And a man answered the door
In his underwear, staring dumbly
At me. I was desperate for a phone
To call my dad, praying he’d pick up,
Otherwise, I’d be stuck
With the undressed stranger.
He did, and soon my dad was sliding
down the dangerous hill,
In the car I’d soon wreck.
Next, he held his metal two-ton jack,
And ratcheted the truck up, and off,
And up and off, back
Onto the road, where the ice melted,
And the snow turned to rain,
And the sky filled with lightning,
But we survived, and now,
We can laugh at this story.
Song of Sorrow and Joy: 2
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.
Remind Me
10 Saturday Oct 2020
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Canada Geese, Canadian Geese, Love, Love Poems, Lovers, Memory, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Spokane River
The final chapter is full of thank yous,
breathing in the mystery of Canada Geese,
whose wings pierce the ravine, the V of it,
gliding inches above the Spokane River–
remind me, I say, remind me; I never want to forget,
and inhale deeply, as if I could take that feeling
into my soul-bones, my image keeper–
a fragile place, for sure, always in need
of being reminded by those who felt it, too.
He told me, you will remember the old things best,
the very old memories, you want to forget.
I say:
We appreciate too late,
the most beautiful things.
It’s sad to think I’ll remember
the one who didn’t love me,
rather than the one holding me now,
holding this memory of the geese.
I think I will write a poem to keep it,
to remind me of what it is to fly,
to love, to pause for a moment
and try to inhale this feeling.
Smoke Taint: 2020 Vintage
09 Friday Oct 2020
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Anger, Chaos, Civil War, CoronaVirus, Covid19, Death, Death Poems, Division, Fear, Fighting, Hate, Hope, hopelessness, Life, Longing, Loss, Memory, Napa, normal, Poem, Poems, Poetry, politics, Smoke Taint, Sonoma, Survival, Wine, Yearning
What does fire taste like in the glass,
Our fear, red with hate, the flames
of civil war? The skin, and the smoke,
cannot be divided; they say
it tastes like ash, what is left
when the smoke clears.
We can see the devastation.
Remnants of a vineyard;
what was there, before tragedy
made our eyes cry with anger.
The tree and native grasses
are poured out, consumed together,
while the vine exists in water it stored,
but cannot save its fruit.
Its creation, aging in the hot fog
of dreams. Life was supposed to be
the taste of flowers, plums, currants,
and only hints of tobacco,
swirled in our glass.
All the Bright Things
16 Thursday Apr 2020
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Hope, Horse Poems, Horses, Life, Memory, Morning, Mt Spokane, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Soul Poetry, Spirit, Spring, Sun, Survival
The sun wakes through a morning window,
stretches itself over the horizon, smiles,
says, it will be a good day,
for horses to lay down and dream,
and I walk into its warmth,
almost able to hope, almost.
The sun persists to midday,
wakes the mountain, still white with snow,
and transforms its peak into a picture,
and if I could paint–
but I will, instead, think it,
in memory of last summer’s huckleberries,
picked there, there, half way up–
the sun smiles again
imagining the sweet boughs,
dark blue berries.
That’s what hope is, it says,
all the things you can see,
like memory,
made bright again.
Veterans of Dead Bones
09 Tuesday Apr 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Death, Humanity, Letting Go, Loneliness, Loss, Love, Memory, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Sacred, Survival, Surviving
We are veterans of dead bones,
products of love, and its loss,
memorizers of last breaths,
and what letting go feels like.
The front line of memory gives way,
what we held in our hands,
dissolves, like water on clay–
muddy water, returning
to muddy ground, then dust;
it is a fate that awaits all of us:
empty arms, encircled of sacred air,
grasping at remnants
of what we valued there.
Life, Receding
28 Thursday Mar 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Aging, Death, Death Poems, Life, Memory, ocean, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Self, Soul, Soul Poetry, Spirit, Truth
Another day, I’ve collected
over eighteen thousand
now, but none like this:
the birds have returned,
and the clouds hang low,
like the mist of what is
unknown, and I don’t care
to know, because I gave up
predicting the future
when I realized
I was always wrong.
The only thing, now,
is this poem, and how
it pulls me toward confession.
You see, a life recedes;
place a bottle in the ocean
and watch it slowly
carried away by the waves;
that is me and you,
this moment,
and this poem.
Memory In Winter
09 Saturday Feb 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Aging, Azaleas, Children, Death, Flowers, hydrangeas, Life, Lilies, Love, Memory, Mothers, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Winter, Winter poem
Winter returned, unbroken,
and I bought azaleas, hydrangeas
and stems of lilies
to stand against white windows.
How like memories,
these flowers in winter:
smiles, laughter, love,
eyes, cheeks, toes, and fingers.
Mama, mama, mama,
I hear them calling,
as I cut their stems.
Flowers for the Dead
05 Tuesday Feb 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Begonias, Childhood, Death, Hope, Life, Loss, Love, Magnolias, Memorial Day, Memory, Poem, Poems, Poetry
I said magnolias,
you said, peonies,
how you remember her hands
tending them, day after day.
I imagine a grandmother’s hands
reaching into a profusion of blooms,
wrinkled and wise and tender;
it’s a good place
for the mind to wander.
Memorial Day.
You were so young,
and your brothers, one older,
one younger, even than you,
would cut the luscious stems,
and place them in a wagon
alongside empty pickle jars,
mayonnaise and jelly jars.
The cemetery.
You’d sell your bouquets
for fifty cents,
three big blooms to a jar.
What a memory,
and I imagined families
pulling up in lonely cars.
It’s the sixties,
and there are waves of Chevy sedans
with heavy doors,
hoods, stretched out in lines,
like plots.
We sold them all, you said.
And I’m not surprised:
regret in empty hands,
is no small thing,
as they walk toward their loss,
tombstones, which remind them
of loss,
of lack.
And then, the relief
when they can fill those hands
with the heft and smooth skin
of a glass jar filled with water,
and a few fleshy blooms.
The Plan of the Unplanned
04 Friday Jan 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Divorce, Forgiveness, Freedom, Life, Love, Memory, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Self, The Universe, Truth
“It isn’t the experience of today that drives men mad. It is the remorse for something that happened yesterday.” Bob Burdette
The tape that plays
is not always a good tape,
or an accurate replay
of what happened.
What you said,
what I said,
over thirteen years,
a million things.
No, an infinity
of words and actions
that speak louder
than words, truer
than our memories
of one another.
I told you,
when I finally leave,
it will be forever,
and I think you believed me.
If I could do over
I would do the same,
and wish you would.
No part changed.
No person gone.
No person, gone,
brought back.
Remorse? I want to say,
No. I want to say
this unplanned chaos
is part of a plan.
I want to look back,
someday, and say,
This is what I wanted,
where I wanted to be.
The Day I Knew the Way
28 Friday Dec 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Afterlife, Bird Poem, Bird Poems, Birds, Conversations With Maggie, Death, Death Poems, Dreams, Freedom, God, Happiness, Heaven, Hope, Infinite, Life, Love, Maggie, Memory, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Reality, Soul, Soul Poetry, Souls, Spirit, Spirits
it was a dream, and hard to tell
where borders and countries began,
but there was a dirt path,
and only I knew the way.
The dirt was soft, and the day
beautiful, I was barefoot
and running freer than ever I have
in wakened-life. It felt good
running in a warm sunshine,
ducking under the Velvet Mesquite,
with their canopies, their shade,
their branches, like open doors
to some better, magical place.
I liked the dream very much,
and could have kept running,
but I came to a lone house,
stark in the barren desert.
A blonde girl stood outside a fence,
scared and holding a gun,
and just like that,
I was shot in the arm.
I said it was a dream, didn’t I?
So, you won’t be surprised
I was impressed with her aim,
rather than the pain of being shot,
and I had to go pee.
I looked for a bathroom,
but had to wake to find one.
What is memory, I asked
later over coffee,
a little box in our brain,
a string of pictures?
How do we get there?
Memory is what we tell ourselves,
he said, about what we see
and what we feel.
You see, when Maggie died,
she passed into a prairie falcon,
she banged against windows,
day after day after day,
then left a last gift of quail,
and traveled the road of her happiness
to some place better than here.
Months later, the sun smiled,
and I ran on dirt, soft as baby powder,
passed through door after door,
on long, liquid legs, more of wing
than bone, and only I knew—
only I knew the way.
Yes, I Remember
07 Sunday Oct 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Somewhere Between This Soft Day
18 Tuesday Sep 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Warm September wind, sunshine,
manure drying itself in round piles
you can kick, and dissolve into dust.
The sweet smell of it, the same
as it smelled thirty-three years ago,
at Harold Johnson’s place.
I breathe in memories like air,
close my eyes and see them all
alive again, laughing, telling jokes
about how they want to come back,
when they die, as a young girl’s horse.
Everything is the same.
Everything is completely different.
Yet, more and more, I’m somewhere
between this soft day,
and memories of this soft day
some place else.
Bits of Poetry 