Saturday, November 16, 2024

Most Wondrous Poem

 The Song of Wandering Aengus 


I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.


When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire a-flame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And someone called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.


Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done,

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.


William Butler Yeats

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

A New Moment

 Birthday Goals for the 78th Year

October 29


Write more poetry

Be calm and find beauty

Expand the vast 

Wherein salvation

See shadow

And trust the mirror 

Nurture kindness and 

Don’t stray 

Call to love

Call to forgiving

See the infinite 

In a spiderweb’s tenacity

In the far stars in the Milky Way 

It is nine minutes after 

Midnight

In my allotted new year.


October 30

12:09 am



Saturday, August 10, 2024

Resolve in Twilight

Resolution and memory:

She refused to go outside on ice-covered pathways, snows lovely but not be be navigated,

She withered in the starts & stops of approaching spring, 

Fretting in summertime about the growing,

And only 

Settling into winter 

After her red-orange autumns

Fade into 

What carries from the prairie:

The incessant search

For great opening spaces, where 

Love lives

Amid all balance. 


Friday, July 12, 2024

Everything I’m Taught

 



Get in the ditch when the plains sky gets green

Let your night vision click in 

Listen to the bullfrogs

Wave at the neighbors, 

Be aware of your periphery.

Listen to yourself, dear, 

Auntie said, maybe she spoke of love,

And trust your gut

And say thank you 

For more fireflies this season

Always watch the sky

Smell the earth & air—

My iteration of how 

I have to try to live, 

My lessons, just blooming 

More somehow, amid

A million other

Beautiful ones 

I so want 

To hear. 


Thursday, July 11, 2024

Pebbles

 I search for a peaceful place

No one will find it for me

No one will define it for me

No one will deter me 


I take in my place here

I take in my life, 

Its colors and textures

And stepping away, 

Into the great mystery

It is all of it

Just a peace

A piece

Air and shadow 

That stay as we depart. 


Monday, July 8, 2024

Heat, Eyes

 The Dipper

Orion’s Belt, 

My frail self says, oh

No one will believe me in

My clarity, but 

You have to believe me, 

The sky with its incomprehensible points

Infinite sketches of

Ancient knowledge, 

Their assessments & guides 

And the frogs, they’re quiet. 

It’s hot. 

Dew point to be wrestled

With and all the rest 

But no matter, 

I tell you there is constancy

Wonder

And the comforting homeostasis 

Of the momentary right 

I don’t think that I can know

Only feel. 

All is well? 

Maybe? 

Does a nanosecond count? 

Saturday, June 22, 2024

Breathing Lessons

 We ride into the future on the wings of

Present harbingers

Skyways, shifts of light, the ambience 

Of a moment caught outside 

One found in days of just escaping 

I think we’d all best breathe in 

Miracles, whenever, wherever and

I can smell the rain and 

Loam breaths

Near-rise in miasma as I glance

Around, beyond

Beyond, and back to then and now.

Breathing in the outside

And listening to the thunder.