Air

October 17, 2024October 18, 2024 | Megan

Stairs to the Coast. Oregon. Image, my own.

October Bowery

when fall begins to crystalize, like any change,
the first real storm front moves in,
the leaves which scudded about yesterday
are frozen to the sidewalk, gathering in
browning-yellow scrolls, little edicts of
what is to come, they thaw and scatter
again across streams and gullies where
the thin water still wants to feed the living
thing before being silenced in ice, or
leave monochrome sepias on pavement,
the Hunter’s moon, high and bright illumines
the grass, reedy wisps along the midnight walk,
the dusty path where the air cools, snappy,
crisp, that breath of winter’s coming, flora seized
red in its death, clinging to branch and vine,
each day more dried and dead, ruffled and flurried
by immediate breezes, sounding like Japanese
paper fanfared by a round and excited toddler,
portents of the next season soon to fall
in golden droplets of summer’s dreams
the ocher aspen leaves, in sheets and
flakes of fiery autumn light dazzling and
freshly disconnected from their source right
before they meet the dust and decompose

Sun, Sky, Beach, Life. Oregon Coast. Image, my own.

Strength

Growing is a season of its own, one of loving kindness rooted in faith
one of far-seeing vastness, while standing in sacred spaces. For whatever waves,
winds, and ways that will ever-continue to toss and take their course, stand
in your gifts and rest in fullness, plentitude. Delight in bounty and abundance.
Move from ire to the rich roundness of the good in all living things–
circles of true compassion and empathy which connect all creation– human,
animal, plant, living, all animate with atoms as the entire universe speaks the
soundness of its existence, the tenor of being, the voice of living and the lived

Ocean, Tide, Tree, Coast. Oregon. Image, my own.

Point

when i am in my
brain and heart i realize this
is the goddamn point

Conscious Living

What is it to be alive?
In the rich, abundant world
A sterling jay’s deeply
Decked sapphire feathers
crested head
nestled in the magnolia bush
outside my window
the air as thick as dew,
yet moving as if on an
unheard music suspended
by the wind’s unseen breath

and ocean spume, spurl, churn
TO be part of Earth’s respiration
tide, current, wave, flow, coast
where Earth’s breath meets
land-sand, rock, tree, stone
every piece of physical
particulate of the confirmation
of all alive and breathing
beings, being moved
smoothed, rocked, waved, rolled
over and over in the sea’s bosom

Stones and Seal Carcass. Oregon Coast. Image, my own.

Ocean

I used to think I wasn’t an ocean
person. But these rocky, cliffy,
craggy knobs of sea-shorn trees,
smooth stones and crusty conglomerates
crab shells, jelly-fish skeletons, strips of
kelp carcass, and clings of driftwood
really wrap me into the rhythm of
the tide

Magic. Foam, mist, spume, churl, splutter. Oregon, Coast. Image, my own.

Know

I know what I am
doing, I don’t know any
thing other than that

I don’t know what I’m
doing, I don’t know any
thing other than that

Oregon

October 15, 2024October 16, 2024 | Megan

No Phone

All this connectivity
Search engines and
Social media, email
Severs and direct
Message platforms
Every app, it can
Certainly feel
Exhausting to be
so very connected
to each other, yet
Barely involved with
One another,
Bodily, physically,
Beyond productivity
Trackers and fitness
Bits what happens
When you are
Cabined away
In the ferns, Sitka
Spruce, magnolia, and
Dogwood of the

Oregon Coast
Magic as the mist
rolls in from
Cove Beach and you
Stretch out on a
Carnelian settee to
Watch the fog billow
In and congeal on the
Picture windows and
Back-bone of
Driftwood lying in the
Long grass
Gray-white skeletons
of the Ocean made
Manifest to
Remind that
Everything has
Source, spirit, purpose
You put some Peace
Piece, Bill Evans
On the record player,

But eventually let
Everything fall silent
Once again because
The treasure is the
Stillness, the disconnect
The quiet hum of the
Needle across vinyl
Being dampened by
Swelling waves perhaps
Yards away, the mighty
Roll of the Ocean speaking
that sometimes being
Whole means being
Havened away, un-
Reachable,
no phone,
SOS, airplane mode,
Out of service
Out-of-office
Elsewhere, gone

More sunset, i. Oregon, Coast. Image, my own.

Slow Dance

Slow dance with yourself on a Sunday morning
Take your hair down and grab one hand in your other
Life your spirit onto the raw wooden floor of the
Little house you call home, hickory scraped by thoughtful
Hands, where you live, sway to the beat of your heart, love
In time to the pulse of your quiet longings, smile
in self-solidarity, spin, circle, so that you see where
you are, grounded, so that your heart senses that
every part of you understands that you are the only one
who can inhabit your soul, your spirit, your life, your love
kiss your own vitality with a gentle nod, your body, your mind,
your essence, well, whole, perfectly safe. Let the music
take your shoulders and hips in the rhythm and stride
or two, of just you, slow dancing with yourself

Beija Flora, Cove Beach, Oregon. Image, my own.

Yes

Yes to me
Yes to life
Yes to ocean
Yes to mountain
Yes to lift
Yes to love
Yes to change
Yes to work
Yes to nobility
Yes to learning
Yes to risk

New Mythologies: Achilles

I’ve needed new mythologies
For a long while now, in fact,
I remember stating this bluntly
When heading out for a swim
Around the long arm of a lake
With a friend, and it turns
Out that the inception of these

Tales and tides save(d) me
from both pride and envy,
boredom and bliss, these
mythologies had already begun to
Take root in my life,
some of them recently, and some
Long, long ago

Achilles was the son of Thetis
And Peleus most strong and noble
Soldier of the Trojan War who was
Dipped in the River Styx by his ankle
His weakness, you know it,
Because it becomes the place of his
Death, pierced by Paris’s arrow

But my achilles is the only thing that
Was saved when I fell free
Climbing, ten feet, and my foot was torn from
My ankle nearly off, but for the
tendon, the achilles, which saved me–
my ability to walk, to run, to ambulate, to
Be in the woods and rivers, canyons
And valleys

How important then, that all that was
Holding my life together actually was
My hubris, my weakness, my ineptitude
The irony wasn’t lost on me, and how
Weakness is in us all, and thereby
A crucial part of every life
And maybe our downfall

But may actually become our very
Strength as I learned the gift of
Living, of understanding difference
And ability across many fractals
Was shown and learned to show
Others empathy in their need,
In their frailty

I was dipped back into mortality
By my wound, by my heel,
By my maiming
The weak point
The place of mortality
The pinch of imperfection
Made into strength

October

October 9, 2024October 14, 2024 | Megan

Snake Creek with a Rainbow. Image, my own.

Beautiful Boy

In my line of work,
I get to see things
And hear things
That many people do not,
Will not, see and hear
Personal narrative: a genre
Used to tell one’s story
To put your truth into
The World, tell your
Life to the Universe
Of all living things
To say, to see,
To be seen
To listen
These are very tender
Moments—actions, braveries
Moves—today a young man
Quietly said to his classmates
Boys want to be Beautiful
Too, boys want to be
Given flowers and trust
And the opportunity,
To be Vulnerable
Boys want to
Be seen and soft
And before you scoff
Please know that to put
Eyes on this young man
He was “normal”
Which doesn’t exit
But he wasn’t some standout
He wasn’t crying to be
Noticed in a needy, cloying
Way he was sincere
Brown eyes shining
And serious, he said again,
Boys want to break down
Boys want to be treasured
And saved, and tendered
Boys are complex and
Layered, multi-faceted
And so easily shattered
So easily loved
Beautiful boy

Melt:
for the hottest October on record

things melt like banana
popsicles on hot sidewalks

hearts at the cuddle of
a tender puppy’s nuzzle

sun as it sherberts into sunset,
dreamy scoops of carnelian, fuchsia, crimson

water being sublimated into
sediment, becoming sludgy mud

metal silver when heated to one thou-
sand seven hundred and sixty-three degrees

falsity as you live in truth in the world
as it is, not as you wish it to be

light refracted and gloriously dispersed
through water into the entire color spectrum

butter bubbling, sizzling in the fry
pan in anticipation of the next repast

bodies into one another, warm
with the savior-vivre of desire

Sitting in Cars with Moms

Listening to music with abandon, shake it
Hearing a favorite podcast in a vacuum, rapt
Slumping over the steering wheel, emergency
Crying, tears pouring down cheeks, salty
Praying as if there is no tomorrow, apocalypse
Laughing raucously with a friend on the line
Changing the ka-billgionth diaper on the seat
Resting the eyes at the thought of dinner, cook
Wanting for a touch a hug a support, embrace
Kicking back the seat for a true nap, snooze
Reading a book while a child is at music lessons
Waiting for babies in the carpool line, patient
Scanning a prescription before returning to sickness
Sipping a drink in silence while ruminating,
Pondering the existential crises of humankind
Yodeling to an Oktoberfest hit, hot 100
Brushing back the hair, mustering a smile, love

Hope Feathered in Me Today

Rose like an owl in the dark
of night. Off on an important
measure. A simple key into what is
Take no more than you give.

On this day we celebrate
The now— the moment— what is
As it is what we have to celebrate
Looking into the moon-face of our children

Listening to their dreams. Holding
a lover after a frozen lamp-lit tramp
Into the pitch-dark night
Drawing lines across a page,

A stone, a landscape to remember
Each leaf outlined, sepia veins,
Each intricate brace of existence a
Falling into one another– hope

Stars

October 1, 2024October 2, 2024 | Megan

Milky Way Galaxy looking into the arm, High Uinta Wilderness, August 2024. Photo Ryan Moat.

Pluto

It stands that astrology could all be bull shit
But so could a lot of other concepts offered
in the universe of human understanding
or misunderstanding
Do you really know? Do you just believe?
These are two different things

Air and Space Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.,
sometime in 2008, and Pluto had been stripped of
Planetary status. I was sad. For no reason other than
“My very educated mother just sent us nine
Pizzas” wouldn’t be a thing anymore. I’m not
Sure what about this ninth rock being demoted

depressed me, but when we entered the hall of
Planets, the original installation next to Uranus
Had not been taken down yet. It was only
Inconsiderately draped with a huge swath of
Gray fabric. You could still see Pluto’s form
Lumped with, Charon, his major moon bulbing up

Under the gray canvas. I was sad.
I am woman of faith, despite my unknowing
And when my horoscope explains that
Pluto is finally leaving Capricorn after
fifteen years, it makes complete sense to
me, I’m not saying that the information is designed

For anyone else on planet Earth,
but, damn, if I don’t feel this revelation like fire
Like second chances, like all explanations that are
explainable and can and cannot be explained
Adios, Pluto. You were downgraded from
Planet status a long time ago.

Comet C/2020 F3 (Neowise), Mirror Lake, Utah, December 2020. Photo Ryan Moat.

Für Beethoven

I finally get it
I understand
How L. v. Bthvn
Knew the whole
Of life and love
Because he felt it
So poignantly
So achingly
So intimately
When he writes
Bagatelle No. 25
in A minor
(Für Elise)
You can
Literally sing
The notes to
The night music–
Frogs and crickets
Streams and rain
Stars and bats
Nocturnal rodents–
Keeping melody,
But poor Mozart
His night music is
All pomp, all praise
And glory
And that has
Never been what
Night is about
I suppose Mozart
Will never know

Andromeda Galaxy, M31. September 2021. Photo Ryan Moat.

Dying

it was the time of dying
yet color still held,
sunflowers paused
grass, variegated green
rest was coming
the fall,
the browning leaves and roots
stems bore that truth
the mountain, dusty gray yesterday
was dressed in snow again today
pinking wreaths of clouds
and icy indigo striations
of oncoming dusk
some death is good
the power of it real
and raw, and magic
turning over seasons
the smell of fires, newly burning

Almost New Moon. April 29, 2020. Photo Ryan Moat.

Transformation

Truly time for a
transformation, the season
to greet the New Moon

at her best, she needs
time to shed the old skin and
celebrate the ruin

time to peel back old
eyes from the clay of stunted
vision, bright and clear

her future from the
death of many miracles,
the rivulet won’t

wait, it is time to
flow with strength and abandon
with knowing and grace

Orion Nebula. Big Cottonwood Canyon. January 30, 2021. Photo Ryan Moat.

Scire (ski:re) to know. Latin.
for Starr

To know Time
is to begin to
understand the mortal
drum of the Universe

The thrum of blood
coursing through your veins,
narrative in your head,
bringing you closer
to Death,

but to know Life
is to know the
thousand Drums
cacuophonizing consciousness
Beating,

to know
to see
to love
to joy
to song
to peace

Yes, to tragedy
but, to know the
Infinite is to know
that a star is birthed
in an unfathomably
incandescent act of fusion

Bed of a nebula
beginning of Everything,
Creation– calamitous, cataclysmic
formidable, entropic
where one star died,
another reborn

In the End,
we’ll remember this
bead to celebrate
one life, it returns us
to our original scire–
to know– all love

Library

September 28, 2024September 30, 2024 | Megan

Concerto

i. Vivace
The Body and Brain create a near-constant concerto,
Orchestral ensemble that one piece of the body
May be tasked with– the soloist, for a moment–
The violin of your legs stands in the spotlight
Lifting the bow back, striking the perfect legato
When you lift each leg to strike the pedal: rising, falling,
Rising, falling, in perfect détaché, the synchrony,
Breathtaking, a veritable martelé, up and down,
Crescendoing, up and down, faster and faster,
Staccatos building as you climb that little kicker,
Beast of a hill, every note separate and distinct and
Purposeful and achingly beautiful, melody in movement

ii. Largo
The reality is that the soloist,
The part of the brain or body that is on display, is
Accompanied by an orchestra of other reactions,
Symphony, an entire production of body-brain actors
Breath increasing as you crest the top of the climb
Then wide, expansive sucks of air through your lungs as you
Descend, behind the soloist your legged
String instrument, a complex array of bodily musical
Tools, exchanges of sensory information via energy, chemicals,
Afferent and efferent neural fibers, we know this
But to experience it is so much more vivid, vibrant,
Actual art an afferent neuron gathering signals from

iii. Adagio
The skin like the finely tuned drumhead of the timpani
You’re pedaling along at a rapid pace and your
Neurons are sending each breeze that crests your
Quadricep, each flexion of your fingers as you
Reposition your palm to the vibration of your handlebars
You begin to really circle, pushing, leaning into the
Pedals with more and more force, lifting your
Foot up to keep time and pace with the peloton
This is where the sensory experience really
Begins to take off, you’re in the pace line driving
Your muscles pumping with blood, efferent signals,
Through the femoral profunda, spiccato of oxygen

iv. Finale
Feeding the whole quadricepal system: vastus medialis,
Vastus lateralis, vastus intermedius, and rectus femoris
Don’t forget the glutes, rich, ringing riot of
brain-body orchestration, molto crescendo
Coming in hot… finish line, and stop!

Ramón u Cajal, Neuron, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales

Polyphonic Technicolor Synesthesia

this is how it feels to be in an autumn
wood at sunset, the entire mountain
set ablaze, a conflagration of color in
that warm waning light, each leaf in
stark relief to something visually near–
brittle topaz bark, white aspen trunk, every

sense housed in neon-rich sculptural portals
a magpie cackles from a scrub oak turning
amber its wings that look so black in flight
reflect a deep maxixe beryl,
oceanic opalescent contrast Paul Klee’s
Polyphic Setting for White

poets, mostly, long for synesthesia
so that they can produce that contrast
that catch of the craw between all worlds–
senses coming undone in an autumn
wood or at the very least they’d like to produce
it on the page, certainly the experience

might be so disconcerting as to be
horrible but if you could see autumn
lanced by a sunset or a taste a technicolor
leaf as it fell in a stream of wild wind,
maybe if you’re there long enough
in the woods, the colors begin to have

a particular flavor, like the brown dry leaves
of wyethia amplexicaulis, mule-ears become
tiramisu in the mushroom undergrowth
they take on a shape in your psyche
like a rhombus with the sun setting above
the far angle, always forty-five degrees

Michigan City Public Libaray, Michigan City, Illinois. Architect Helmut Jahn, 1977.

Thin

i do not know what
it is about now, every-
thing just feels papery
a little thin around the
edges, a little dry and
flat

Billings Public Library, Billings, Montana. Will Bruder Architects, 2013.

To Write a Poem

to write a poem
is a lot of staring out
of eyes through windows

Desert Air Motel, Sanderson, Texas. Built in 1960, restored, 2022.

Send Your Kids Weird Texts

Send your kids weird texts
Tell them that you’ll
Give them lunch money
If, when you are really
Old, almost gone, they
Will let you run your
Papery, age-spotted hand
Through the thicket
Of their hair
Make them pause
Question the sanity
Of your replies
Make them promise
So that your five bucks
Is paid forward in your
Elder years, it’ll be worth it
To give them a future
Imagination of how
Much you will
Always love them

Abandon All Solutions

One of my good friends
Heard this in a dream
Or in a wakened state
Where she was contacted
By the Universe,
So the advice wasn’t really
Given directly to me,
But it has come to mean
Everything