Being Here

Sitting tonight outside

On a tattered winter-struck patio

Not yet rescued by broom 

And potted things

I’ve mowed the long hardy grasses, weeds 

Twice now in this long

Recalcitrant spring

I’ve noticed many bluebirds

Fewer robins

And this afternoon spotted

My first little brown toad of the season

Hopping away from the 

Frightening sounds of my mower

And truly, watching, as I carefully turned 

Away from her hideout in

A clump of unruliness around

The smoke bush back by the barn. 

The sun is descending and small grey 

Scattered cumulo stratus nimbus fill the 

Western sky behind the firs that keep

The dust from from Bobby’s plowing from 

My windows, opened

Momentarily to admit spring cleansing before

I close them up

For an unseasonably chilly night

The dip in the back 

Opening amongst long, tall

Stands of spruce and fir,

My alleé I call it there, though just an 

Unkempt magic land of burrows, 

Rotting stuff, rust chuff 

From ancient evergreens

Carpeting a path, well-known 

By generations of animals, and 

Through this window 

Bits of peach and gold from the

Disappearing day cast

A blaze 

Nonpareil 

An instant that 

Beckons belief

My hands are cold and

It’s time for dinner. 

May 18, 2019

Mother’s Day

The blood can catch up, 

The Hurley stubborn in me

Don’t want to go anywhere

Don’t want to go no mo 

This old fabric of land 

Here rent

With memory 

What we could never know

Except that it comes alive, the

Place just blooms, 

The air, the light and the

Dirt shifting

Thinking to temper obdurate,

Some kind of self taps at 

The wild, taps on the window

Look, see this vastness

Loves seem to bloom

From deep down into those

Sighs, long those shadows, and all 

So beautiful in

The sun

May 7, 2019

Accident

Working on a theory

Borned from some trauma,

Most immediately that of

Accident and bad luck

Becoming as bad as bad dream 

As an unwelcome life of it all

Took root,

Defining

Day, night and all the in-between moments

Of fear, doubt, what now and

So forth. 

The thought occurred to me as 

I took a photo of myself as I do

Most everyday, in perhaps a vain

Moment hoping to capture a small

Shrinking of a scary hematoma on my

Forehead,

And I tried to think of another word 

For it that wouldn’t be so jarring,

But there isn’t one.

I started to think about stepping 

Back and away,

As I more or less have done 

I too fight to save Mother Earth

And the people I love the most are so
Clear in their relentlessness

But I did step back, step away,

I had to, for whatever reason, a 

Near-miss, though perhaps I’ll heal

If I am mindful and do as I am told. 

Talking with a friend who let go

The disillusionment of comraderie

She, bleeding hope and passion and

A justice maybe just beyond,  

She said she had to turn away, for now

Or for how long, actually she didn’t say. 

It’s not just about the struggle

Some of us sometimes

Must turn to face another in another light,

The one that glows in the pit of 

Stomach, heart, essence, 

And so stepping quietly amid

The shards of betrayal and avarice

Dissonance and the flat hollow note 

Of someone else’s torque, 

We leave to find in witness and

Introspection a ground as vibrant

And authentic as any solidarity,

Only solitary

I felt this, briefly swirling in the static,

And with a grateful heart, I 

Vowed to try to share that there

Is power and vital balance when

All is said as best one can before the ring 

Is tossed to stars and hope, holding breath and 

Praying for the unseen hands stretched 

To take it up for a time, knitting the 

Intention into belief that something

Bigger waits for bigger breath.