Space

April 19, 2026April 19, 2026 | Megan

Westwood Hills Park Loop; Napa, CA. Image, my own. April 2026.

Jazz

jazz, how something
jazz
something so messy
so seemingly unkempt and
chaotic brings
jazz
something so messy
so unkempt and chaotic, disordered blooms
jazz
so unkempt and chaotic
brings subtle peace
jazz
brings calm clarity
to the mind
to the being
jazz

Napa Valley, CA. Image, my own. April 2026.

Lonely Place (II)

I’m still alone in my anxiety, in the pit of the stomach of the thing

Why does it take humans constant living to remind them that they
are alone and together all at the same time?

being alone
being lonely
being human

are they the same thing?

Am I still sitting at the table by myself?
Or is that just my childhood imagination talking?

What does it mean to be truly intimate with someone, in that you
you can call and text and still be alone

you can have sex and still be alone, still remain disconnected

you can be married to someone and still be walled out or wall

Maybe I’ve built too strong and well against vulnerability

The horns at sunset. Westwood Hills Park Loop; Napa, CA. Image, my own. April 2026.

Noted:
I noticed the quiet
omission of those three words
when you said goodbye

Eventide. Napa, CA. Image, my own. April 2026.

Space

What does it mean to need space, to take up space, to be in space
If we look at all of the bodies surrounding us, antithetical to room,
In definitions of space we might see blackness, bed covers, a field,
Yogic bodies in goddess pose, scientists from my planet on a vessel,
Artemis, a vehicle, the goddess of the hunt, she blasted them up into
The heavens, the dreams of generations of humans went with her
Astronauts in first grade classes from the sixties until that the final
Countdown from the Kennedy Space Center in twenty twenty-six
Imagined that moment, enraptured by the darkness, a new pitch and
Moment of aloneness, closeness to mortality like very few have lived
Our utter contrast, a bluegreenwhiteorb, pure pith and circumstance
Twelve months, our orbital timeline around the sun, twelve moons, of
Waxing and wanning, newing and fulling, shifting and pulling oceans
It’s hard to know what will come of this push and pull in the end

Wyeth grasses. Westwood Hills Park. Napa, CA. Image, my own. April 2026.

Angle

April 12, 2026April 16, 2026 | Megan

Little Rock Canyon Trail. Image, my own. 2026

Billie Holiday and a Constancy of Dishes

growing into what goodly work feels like, allowing

Billie Holiday to meet a Sunday afternoon, a moment to rest

sultry trumpet lines and mellow tenor sax vibratos curl

around the soft razz of her story, falling in sensual serenades from

her lips, tragedy, truth, the fact that things fall apart, and fall

together again all in one song, one heart, one lifetime

a slow, delicious meal simmering on the stove to be

shared with my dearest, a quick sear to seal in flavor

so as I wash these dishes, may I remember Brother Lawrence

1666 Carmelite monk whose work became to wash the

dishes– pots, pans, spoons, bowls– whose devotion

to paying mind and body to the menial task became

a meditation, a prayer, a conversation, an act of deep adoration

to the point of nourishing Brother Lawrence in joy

joy at the least of these, the insignificant existence of humans,

recorded as the stuff of worshipers, acolytes, viewers, and tourists

over the ages who watched Brother Lawrence wash, in soverignty,

dishes

every dish evidence that life was given, bread was broken, food and

tidying up became an act of physical communion

Dance

sometimes I’ve climbed back into the dress
I wore when we danced together for the last time

we inhabited two separate bodies, two separate lives, we danced with
all of our experiences swirling inside of us, there is seemingly nothing

that could save us from the next part of the dance. undone, again, I am
sad, it’s a different sadness, not the raw, aching fire of the first separation

not the low moaning tears of the days the boys had to leave to be with you
it’s a sadness more of recognition, of assent, nodding ‘yes’ to what was

and accepting what is, and allowing myself to still feel sad that I didn’t
know, could never have known, it would be our last dance

A Certain Slant of Light

the clouds rise in great crescendos
thunderheads of nimbostratus, portent
like that mahler record of resurrection
nestled in the thrift store vinyl section
life and death and redemption
those rays of light we all see
which break through the somber
sky, a promise,
who knows the rules, who keeps them
when it comes to poetry, lightning
mercury, fate, spirit, a palantir

Iris, goddess of rainbows. Image, my own. 2026

Vast Expanse

March 1, 2026March 2, 2026 | Megan

Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge, February 2026

Align

_{-In celebration of
Planetary alignment
And love and life}

Sometimes, like today
February 28th
All of the planets align

You commit to your
Own wild adventure,
You break sonnets

Into sentences and
Receive messages
From the sea, the

Oceans of desire
Swell and calm
And swell again

The foam of ancient
Seabeds, laid down
In marl of

Seashells, an intimate
Mixture of calcium
Carbonate and clay

Prehistoric alluvials,
A vast bed under the
Broad blue sky

Where water, once
Abundant, La Mer, is
Friable through fingers

The rise and fall
And rise of each breath
Rolls heavenward

Yet, now, all
That undulates on
That vast range

Are block horsts from
Earth’s basement,
Deepest oceans of

Molten waves,
Mountains upon
Mountains mirror

Wave upon wave
The blue sky, Everything
Signifying everything

The eons old lake,
Long gone, becomes
The background

Of our days and
Nights and days
As the full moon

Wanes and waxes
Another quantum wave
Of space and time

Between Fish Springs Range and Thomas Range, Pony Express Trail

The Lonely Places (I)

I used to say that my family came from all the lonely places
That somehow, my diaspora got together and agreed to live
On vast plains of prairie, and in dry canyons and deserts
We moved with our own rhythm to the far north and
Set up tiny claims on sweeping vistas of the American
West, the lonely places– unwelcoming, sparsely inhabited

So as we drove yesterday across basin and range after
Basin and range, I could understand some of the longing
That knits the heart to space that confirms the lonely insides
Always looking out, through a window on the barren world
Where with delight a dusty coyote sprints across your path,
Downy woodpecker, her black mask, lights on a cottonwood branch,

There Earth’s bends, striations, upheavals, and rich history
Sit in blocks, and rocks, and mountains which carry our
Eyes beyond the present, forward and backward in time
Fox trots in and out of sage lanes and sand loops across the
Lonely, bereft, solo, alone, solitary, single, unaccompanied, one
Landscapes that require a yearning which cannot be quelled

Feminine

we are left fighting
against softness in a world
so desperate for peace

we’ve left her circles
behind to find that tech gods
of degradation

blight the entire
atmosphere, each system breeds
another fall and

trapped in arrogance
and ignorance we’re ripe for
tragedy, collapse

cycles of seasons
wind-songs and river beds all
speak her name, whisper

too soon, we sold her
sources, strength to greed-gutted
rulers, monsters, thieves

we are left fighting
for softness in a world
so desperate for peace

Autumn again

October 26, 2025January 20, 2026 | Megan

Deschutes River as seen from Bend, Oregon

To Keep A Promise

Didn’t we all make promises?
Didn’t we all say yes to caring for each other?

And yet, here we stand with the truth the we
Must be our own golden mean, our own magic

We had nothing to do with the wild universe that
Called us into existence, except for that we have made

A pact, a promise to ourselves, that we
Would live each day to honor our mitochondria

To uplift our own atoms, to love the Starrdust
Of others– to kin-keep, to break bread, to

Carry things on our heads and backs, and hearts
And sometimes we have to break the promise

To set the other free, to honor our sovereignty
And perhaps, that is the gift of grief, those

Tendrils of sadness and severed nerves which
Feel so raw, so new, so in need of protection

Cradle all of us in. The letting go. The setting
Apart, the making into two, and the reconstitution

Of family, of friends, of tables and candlelight
A twilight override, a play it again, Sam

A journey that has always been one of the heart
That can really only view and visit the other through

A window– soul to soul, sex to sex, human to
Human, heart to heart, I am that I am

Broken Top, Three Sisters Wilderness, Deschutes National Forest, Oregon (2025).

Falling Forward

It’s not very often I’m privy to an American football game
I prefer soccer, to be honest, or lacrosse, or even rugby
… Any other sport, but I was watching the epic
eternal battle (they call it the holy war) between the red and the blue
And my partner pointed out that one of the quarterbacks

Knew how to perform a ballet for each play, each pass, they
laser-focused their eyes, their body, their entire being
On the intention, the target, even after it left their hands,
yes, they fell forward, toward the play, toward the action
each time, there was not even a hint of indecision in

Their gaze, and it got me to thinking about how life
surely requires this, that we fall forward, that we
look to our most noble intentions with laser-focus
With longing, we’ll be so set on our goal that we’ll
Fall that direction, a ballet for each day

1.0 Human

a documentary
something about
education and
technology

the second clip
is Ken Jennings
you know, Jeopardy
most-winner who

explains that we have
already been bested by
the technology “gods’
all I can think

is, I’ll never be
ready for this
I’ll always want
bodies, and touch,

and direct instruction
eyes lit by
the sun and that
wondrous gray glob

of matter synapsed
by neurons
I need flesh over
algorithms every

day and the fact
that the bots
spell rhythm
with an i

(lower case) is all
you need to know
about the state of
humanity

I’m slated for the
scrap pile dust
to dust
my god

Montana

May 21, 2025May 22, 2025 | Megan

On Wednesdays

And sometimes, on Wednesdays,
you feel altogether less than.
Less than creative. Less than
bright; less than enough. Still
there is this desire to burst some

seal in the universe to say what
you feel. And you determine
to send the man you love a letter
because you are also reminded
by your intro to writing classes

how powerful our interactions,
entanglements with the natural
world really are. Reliving our
gorgeous weekend in Montana.
Wide skies, iridescent light. The river,

carving out its channel, hosting
bobbing rafts of geese, the
swift water constantly breathing,
caressing, quick-tickling its banks.
Feet, pinked, cold and smoothed

by silt and stones. The mule ears
sunshining in bunches on the
low slope of each sky-grazing
mountain range– Absaroka, Crazy,
Gallatin, Tobacco Root– still white-

tipped with winter, now green-
black with pines, avalanche lines
and juicy jade undergrowth
all silently worshiping Spring,
new whorls of love made daily

Yellowstone River, Paradise Valley, Montana. May 2025.

Deluge

Spring, you may wander through my
soul in infinite spectacles of rebirth,
interrobangs of golden mule ears
apostrophes of purple monkshood,
little ellipsis of mountain service berries
punctuating each hillside and long
top-frothing grasses, mountain oceans
in growing breezes, a cloudy sky meant
to cast angles and halos, one
moment warm and the next a
whipping rain, a deluge,
steady then soft, pelting then gauze,
a corporeal mist clinging to river beds,
mountain roots and renewal

Skin
shedding
morphing, learning,
lose, grow, shift, change
a year for becoming strong and centered
snake

Blindness
absolute blindness
creates false hope, fists clenched and
clinging old, wet sand

Sight
when the grief subsides
the soul is filled with blinding
joy, internal sight

See
did you want to drive
your military complex
around on the street