01 Wednesday May 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
arrowleaf balsamroot, Bird Poems, Crows, Gratitude, Happiness, Hog Lake, Hog Lake Falls, Hope, Horse, Horse Poems, Horses, Life, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Ravens, Spirit, Spokane, spring poem, Waterfalls
The ground sounds hollow,
an echoing cadence of hoofbeats
follows among ponderosa, & a caw-caw
of wood raven, forest spies tattling
on our prattling happy chatter,
while hawks circle the pool
at the base of hog lake falls,
& balsamroot whispers
about the perfection of it all.
02 Tuesday Apr 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Canada Geese, Cowboy, Freedom, Hope, Horse, Horse Poem, Horse Poems, Horse poetry, Horses, Life, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Ravens, River, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Spokane, Spokane River, Spring, Survival
We rode dirt and mud,
through standing water,
like ponds, to verify
the sun, and life
of returning things:
Canada Geese, wood ravens,
mule deer, grazing at dusk,
and the river, surging
with the spring run off
of our souls, singing.
19 Wednesday Dec 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Falcon, Horses, Irish Wolfhound, Jobs, Life, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Priorities, Ravens, Soul, Spirit, Work
The crippling desk, for six years,
granite topped, and bright
with the computer’s glare,
the tapping of keys,
the winding path of a mouse,
the click, click, clicking,
a sickening tick-tock of life.
Today, I say goodbye,
trade you in for a beautiful chaos,
throw myself to the world,
the raven, the falcon who tried to enter
through the upstairs window,
the horses and wolfhounds,
with their joyful lope and pounding
of the ground, the music, the words,
the gray, but wide-open sky.
08 Sunday Apr 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Courage, Eastern Washington, Fishtrap Lake, I-90, Moses Lake, Nobility, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Raven, Ravens, Seattle, Spokane, Strength, Washington
Imagine this: an arid countryside
In early spring, wild grasses
Still brown and dormant
From the autumn before,
Cumulus clouds, dark, heavy,
Make it seem like night,
Though your watch says otherwise.
There’s a lake reflecting the clouds,
Known for its rainbow trout,
Which attracts fishermen and birds,
And a BNSF train breaking westward
Toward Moses Lake and Seattle.
Imagine a raven soaring
Over the train, and with it:
The train, with its many orange cars,
The raven, ripping, racing, winning,
And reducing everything to backdrops
and props, objects bowed
By a single, scrappy black bird.
09 Wednesday Jul 2014
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Crows, Hot Summers, Husbands, John Lennon, John Lennon's Death, Madness, Murder, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Ravens, Red Tail Hawks, Souls, The Atlantic, The Atlantic Magazine, Wives
Everyday, I try to find peace
In a world that killed Lennon;
Not only peace, but poetry.
The skies are open here, broken
Only by straggly stands of Ponderosa,
And, from my place on this earth
I can see the Red Tails hunting
Over the fields, and two crows
Gathering at the barn, for what—
To eat something that’s dead there?
Or, the thing I choose to believe,
A kindred reconnection of souls.
Today, I don’t want to know
The truth. It’s too hot.
Almost 100 degrees and much of what
Was on the verge of madness,
Has gone wholly to madness.
A husband entered a building, killed his wife.
Another man admitted doing the same
Only a short drive away.
Israel is at war, again, with Hamas,
As I sit and read The Atlantic, contemplating
The creative, communal genius of rock stars.
And, trying to find peace in a world
That shot John Lennon four times In the back.
06 Sunday Jul 2014
Posted in Uncategorized
When our black cat lay dead
at the foot of the crooked mailbox,
her sister circled nearby in the trees.
Three days later, she too was gone.
I thought I’d heard before,
cats will disappear
when someone dies.
Often, in trees near our house,
we see hawks, hear crows,
sometimes, they fight.
There is a madness in the trees;
it resembles our own madness.
Like the funerals of crows,
their gathering in trees,
their communal mourning,
their many scold calls.
Have you heard them?
They go on like that
over their dead.
Coyotes also gather in sound;
their howls manic and frantic,
the way we imagine demons,
if there were demons.
There is a place in the trees
where everything disappears:
cats, crows, even coyotes.
It’s a dark mystery we dream,
the sounds coming to us on wind,
through lonely skies,
and brutal, beautiful trees.
