Portland Air

I was going to Portugal 

Walking on a forest path past a small 

Whitewashed stone house 

Somewhere in Switzerland 

Fragrant pine needles under my feet

I recalled traversing that narrow byway

One time before, and it was pleasurable 

A safe connector

First, tho, I had

To find the plane, and 

No one selling candy and Dramamine 

Behind the counters in the crosshairs

Of the airport

Quite knew where it was 

When I was asking

Where to find that plane.

But I saw a wide opening, an 

Airport arch into a long ramp, 

Bright sky awaiting, 

Beckoned, I walked toward 

Light beyond a marshy shore; 

There, rough seas suddenly calmed to glass, 

Lapping waters, a small raft waiting

Someone held my hand and 

I tiptoed thru the shallows 

And found an open seat

I mean, a place for me to sit, as we 

Paddled to the plane on a tarmac 

On a reef altho 

I do not know for sure

One thing though, I remembered to bring

A large sheaf, of art and drawings, 

Papers, blank spaces, to be filled with 

Whatever might be coming 

At first I thought they might be mine

But I gave them to a boy beside me

He too seemed to be a voyager

In search of larger understandings

The waters were grey then, as we 

Slipped moorings

And I woke up.  

Seeming to Arrivie

In that indiscriminate hour

Not dawn, nor midnight, 

When voices close & far quiet

And there is sleep across

A hemisphere where 

My mind searches for

Salvation as I struggle toward the vast,

I woke to light, and

Gunnar barking

And then he slept again

What if such small ordinary

Instances

Are just the 

Wake! 

Wake, You! 

Wake and Listen calls, the shift

Of tone, as my deep chimes on the 

Old side porch, oldness of the wood

Behind them, the soft reverb 

Of alto peale from changing 

Wind, not harbinger of anything, or

Small startle of headlights when

She drops off the newspaper as she’s done

For decades, this time 

Delivered to the mailbox 

A bit early, 

A bit late

Nothing to mind about, no need to fret,

Mundane rhythms 

Reminding me to sometimes 

In the deep of neither night nor day

Just be awake. 

I don’t know what happens tomorrow

Or in one month

One year, one allotted lifetime

To think I do is folly to the 

Larger pulse

That light, though, 

Could have maybe also been 

Just one of the young guys

In the next section, 

Lost, a little drunk, 

Turning around, wanting 

To go home. 

I think I shall cleave to these 

Simple explanations: 

The earth spins on her axis,

This too shall pass, 

Upheaval, and 

I like to imagine that

The learning got from loneliness 

And the shortening of time and memory

Tips us toward assembling

Another kind of light. 

 

 

Going Somewhere

 On the western side of daybreak

Opalescence in a winter sky, 

The faintest shimmer, soothed upon

The raw of waking early to what 

Was not remembered during sleep

Another day beginning 

With fists of fear and fury 

Claiming sentience best understood as 

Rough passage, though passage still,

Translucence the only certainty,

As the moment slips

Into the waiting morning.

I decide to sleep a little longer

In a room where sunlight chastens 

The dark corners, the ones defined, and

Those that are not, as well

Behind my drowsy lids 

This hope arrives again

I tell myself that 

One can never know 

The plans of a new day.

December 30

Sent from my iPhone

Wake, Wake Up

You were drowning 

And you couldn’t breathe

Your hands were tied behind your back

Oh! You were wearing a grey skirt and 

A navy blue sweater I think, hair loose

And long, 

You were lost in the riot 

Though you tried to be 

Intentional and proper. 

Seriously.

It wasnt you so you just watched her

She slipped beneath the still

Flat surface of her life, and 

You know, made drowning look easy. 

January 1, 2021 1:37 AM 

 

Moving into Rain

This blessed rain

Pours and hammers, 

Splatters,

Floods, 

Washes

Washes

Washes Earth

Travels in currents

Builds in grey galleons

Falls in its torrents

Washes miseries, 

Miseries

I thought it could be snow

I thought it could be green Christmas

I thought it could be grey, 

Sadness inexplicable.

These winter solstice ends of day,

Though,

Gleam through bare trees standing

In the distance, flames burnishing 

Up from ground, horizon’s twilight sky 

Pulled into 

Solstice change,

To rain.

Maybe all of this

Is what is always there for us to hear

To apprehend,

But in the strife,

This night,

Craving waiting gentling

I dare to wish 

The turning. 

December 25, 2020

Wasted Time

Too old, sort of, to get hung up

On wasted time. 

Not a thing might change, except

Some less elusive sleep. 

https://youtu.be/nWlEsta4xS8

In the Old Times

Hito, he had red hair

And in the old days, 

Oh any music and we danced

Even if there wasn’t a sound

But the moon singing in the trees, a star

Or two that we could see

Above the canyons,

The music could change

And on we went, well

You know, on in 

This life. 

In this life

We carry on, riding

Currents, 

Maybe, even, into the next.

Sometimes right before he’d 

Come to find me, I already knew, 

I’d watch him, narrowing my eyes 

To better see him, 

Watch to see him coming 

Through the cottonwoods 

By his place down on the river

The currents sparkling, 

Part of the dance