Land of Oz
first place that understood me was Oz
land of misfits, land of ne’er do wells
away from a grey and white life
Oz knew how to fix my heart me
Category / Poetry
The Young Widow
I will put on widows’ weeds.
Everyone will see my sorrow.
In shops, women
will purse up their smiles,
avert their eyes
from the cross-hatch
Silver Falls State Park, Oregon
Silver Falls
State Park, Oregon
We hear it first, the roar of it,
then a glimpse through stands
of cedar fronds and maple limbs
until we see in a clearing the surge
of water pounding down.
The trail winds behind the charge,
droplets of power plunge
Clouds 1 and 2
He asked me once if I had touched a cloud and what it felt like
and I said soft and his father said cold. And he asked if it was like bed,
like lying down, and we tried to explain that a cloud is only a collection of
tiny particles, water held together by air, a thing that you can be in and pass through
and even touch, but that you cannot hold.
Revolution in Croquet
Let’s knit a shawl so the women can spend a warm winter
let’s make it of basil and thyme for the pregnant mother
and of dried corn leaves for the country girl
let’s knit a shawl to cover her shoulders
let’s do it for all the women of this storm-colored sky
Lapis Lazuli
Sometimes the streets turn to memory
the cities imagine others
in that distance between words
between dream and reality
stories seeking refuge
The Misnomer Renaissance Faire
The Airedale woke us, crashing and howling
against the door. John and I watched a coyote leap the fence,
its gold melting into the dark wood
and our hen a limp ribbon in its teeth.
The dog tracked scattered chicks
Continue reading… "The Misnomer Renaissance Faire"Mother’s Last Hula
On her deathbed paralyzed by a stroke she broke everyone’s heart
By doing a hula with the right hand she could still move. Her eyes
Closed, her mouth locked in what might have been a smile, her hand
Held for a moment the clouds that gathered over the Ko’olaus,
Then flowed with the streams that tumbled down to the sea.
Everybody Got the Fever
You wowed us with the horse’s neigh you taught
yourself to imitate so well that neighbors
thought we kept one in our house.
On the wall, as I remember it, a painting of a charcoal
colored horse on a pink background, a treasure
Quiet
In half-shade that signifies the close
of night I see the faded quarter- moon
poised mute above the faint skyline.
A silence of birds sits in winter pine.
The stillness of the dawn is tangible.
I sense her at a distance with no color yet,