Blue Moon Reflecting

Close your eyes
I’ll be here in the morning,
Close your eyes 
I’ll be here for awhile.
             ~ Rosie and Richie

And then, the fleet aha

Of homeostasis,

Past reminding: this is

A gift, 

Homeostasis, 

Seconds to last 

This lifetime until

The maybe of

The next balance 

But that

Fall, diamonds on the

Wet red leaves, 

Sun cutting through the

Rain as we drove

Or was I alone,

Driving through tears

And forest light

Opening up into  

Understanding

And I was singing today

As I was driving home

And I came around this 

Wonderful curve, no, I more or less

Flew right there where I can see

The lake. Sun broke

Through socked-in gray, and

My harmonizing was

Keen and perfect, for 

A while. 

Cherry Carol

I watched out the window tonight as

The room went from black

To petal grey a hush of pink

In a blue night deep sky

I remember walking with the kids

At Cooper’s Cove and

Talking with them about 

Our night vision

It appears in wondrous bits

And brights, a palate that

Cannot be described arrives

I want a cherry tree out by the pond,
Probably at least a couple, 

And cedar back towards

Bobby’s road 

And I don’t want to block

The western winds

I cannot wait for this place

To wake up, all everywhere outside

Waiting again, and

Saying, come now and bring 

Your long winter back into spring. 

I figured some things out, figuring

More. Remembered some things, 

The rear view mirror sparkles,

Just alive, all there, and

Seen, night vision lit through
The bedroom window, my

Cherry trees.

Days before Snow

In the great early morning dark

Full moon suspends, wane

Portending gibbous.

Four elements scramble 

For the balance that once was

Just as sure as cranes landing

On the braided river.

Wisdom and continuity

Don't come cheap, and

What seem like just some

Small prices paid 

Might become unbearable.

All the night solitude hummed, 

You looked at the vast sky

Thinking of all the 

Crossers of the borderlands,

Their tears watering the ancient

Ground of being,

Now you wrest uncertain words 

As a new day arrives. 

There will be 

Fog floating across that

Ushering moon, and 

You promise to keep trying

Even though 

You will be gone before

You'll know.

Sift

The snow just floated down today
Sky’s old-fashioned flour sifter, 

Sometimes, lately, though,

Heaven’s crowded 

With too much:

Nor’easters and derechos 

Polar vortex and the drought 

And even though you’d always 

Lived among the elements, you 

Find you’re not prepared

Detaching doesn’t mean a thing

It just creates the space 

For breathing, watching 

And for listening

You watched all day from

Windows here and there 

Around the house, looking 

Far out to the pond, 

Back to the barns, 

To the gardens in the old

Stone beds out there,

A crazy certain light

Surrounded everything 

Inside the house, outside, 

And as the hours 

Passed in clear grey and 

Grey-gold light,

Snow sifted down, 

Pinwheeling,

Sometimes flurrying in

The windies from the lakes

A solitary calm came knocking.

You ticked off the things that can’t 

Remain unsaid, untended and

Undone; the smaller world

Awakes, the sextant spins, 

And hovering, 

Your latitude comes into 

View; you always knew

As viewshed cleared 

That creating all that

Space the way you did was worthy, 

Had integrity. 

You notice that the season 

Is trying to be passing; these

Rugged springs test your 

Wintered homeostasis,

But snow sifted all the morning, 

All the afternoon,

Just sifted down, descending

Somehow you’re seeing, and you’re 

Feeling now, a

Shifting of the balance 

Odd, the simple lifting 

Life of earth and air and winds, the 

Water swirls to snow. 

It is soft comment, gentle.

You read about how grasses grow,

And how to heal a nasty gash,

You fuss with your old dogs,

And think about the garden,

Coming soon, you think about 

Your friends, your family.

It is just

That kind of snow.

Still and Still Snowy

You get to love

The rain when all signs said sunny

You get to love the

The way the world arrives

In your smaller one,

The one you nurture and steward

In your 

Own way 

You get to love 

The impossible

In the ways that have always

Made the globe spin

Watching, the sun shines on

The road by the mailbox

But all the while snow dances

Across the red rooftops 

Of the barns out back

The knowing arrives:

You get to love 

The chances that seem

Long, those 

Rich, succulent roads

Unfurling to mystery, entailing 

Your attention to the 

Unnavigable truths along the way

The present, being quite 

Difficult to apprehend, still

Pulses with a steady light, oh!

I know the way. 

Following it, I 

Tell myself, 

There’s something to be said

For drift 

March

Finally the snow comes,

Ghosting into a middle of the night sky

We thought it would come 

At seven, eight

The predictors of the weather told us,

But rain, 

And rain,

Sleet, then some tiny releases from 

The birthing clouds,

Because who are we to know

What will really happen?

And every early spring,

Late winter, I release into my fears,

The ones that 

Throttle me, and then I slay and 

Stymie them,

And I make myself remember:

Daffodils persist,

Crocus. 

Early others push through

Wintered sleep,

The ground gives way. 

Tonight I watch from a dark bedroom

Across the disappearing landscape

Spring snow, it deepens into grey 

And in the morning, I will see that 

Rhythm is more than any human ken,

The season knows.

I can’t spend time in these temporary days with 

My fretting about future,

Future past, that’s really what persists

With only now that knits it all together 

And maybe all I need to know is 

This spring snow.