A torche glitters in her hand, a brightly whishing brand lighting the ways– a choice, the path you take, the path you don’t, all paths you leave behind– they are equally lighted by her candle, paths you can see now and will never be
revealed again, in the flickering breath the shadows cast into the recessed flume, the light loses its brilliance, the gravel of the third way spooled out along the straighter path, and the second road banking darkly into the far side of some
gray and dusty landscape which even the brighted stars cannot now expose, So what does this goddess of the dark night and her burning wooden beam divine, does the curve of her hip signal some portent, message of direction,
no, the way, the path, the journey will not be signaled by another, you must choose, you must contemplate, intuit, and define your bounds your path will be yours, after all, your own, so you must own your choice
wavering again, the flame whispers from some fate-wind ahead, some ancient breath of the beyond, you grip the paper of your healing in your pocket and take one long breath, exhaled in the rising chill, a mist
spurled ahead, looking up into the star-strewn night the weight of the choice comes softly on the shoulders of the traveler, an unseen cloak, take a small but firm step toward the flume, the future
Canemah Bluff Nature Park. Oregon. Image, my own.
Clay
Molded and molding, shaping, shifting, pressure, smooth tension, long lines a steady firmness, spirit of water, sunlight, earth, release, become
New Moon Amulet. December 2024. Image, my own.
Talisman
Can any thing be magic? Any blob of gold or Pressing of silver, can An object, an item, a Pinecone or umber fleck of Bark be imbued with Power or general chemistry That brings transmutational Ability, alchemy, divination
Canemah Bluff Nature Park. Oregon. Image, my own.
Some grief never leaves
And I know this because of arthritis Some grief is permanent, the relationship With a parent that you’ll never have, the Child who never entered your life, the Star that never rose in its proper place There will be some things that leave Mortally permanent scars, situations Which will never be shifted into Redemptive tales. Some scars Will ever be with us to remind us How pain and grief bring understanding Gained in no other way,
Starlight street at night. Fukuōji Kazuhiko.
Journey
It began to ring true Several steps from where The grief began, the opening of the way, the continued rock and slosh of the water Eyes opened on a world And existence that was nothing Like what tiny kernel of promise In life began as. Nothing like the seed of the idea of the life you thought you’d live, the contrast was searing and startling at first. But then, by gradual degrees, it became whole, sound, founded, and sacred opportunity
Autumn, overlooking Midway, Utah. Image, my own. September 2024.
Respiration
autumn of last year, I found myself watching my babies breath, in sleep, in dream
deep, cadenced pulls of oxygen fueling all parts of their frames, their beautiful hearts keeping time
children’s eyelashes soft, curled the color of milk chocolate, individuated so perfectly against the
delicate skin of their cheeks, I wept as their chests rose and fell at the joy of watching them breath
constant, paced, churning, these fist-sized hearts, muscling, pushing life-giving nutrients through their precious, peaceful forms
at night, it gave me peace, the assurance that everything was alright, the play of pulmonary veins filling
with nitrogen, argon, all mixed in with O2 being sent to the heart from the lungs hearts filling the upper left atrium
the heart, house of refreshment, dispersing the blood rich with food back into the body through the lower left ventricle
this circle saved me, literally, again and again imagining how the autonomic, metronomic rhythms of the heart allowed them to rest
into dream, into sleep, into measured breaths, into the rising of the inner oceans, breathing peace
Brain, Lightbulb, Plush Chair. Image, my own. May 2024.
Hippocampus
When my students check out a book from the library I often encourage them to make a bookmark Any ratty scrap of paper will do, a plus if it is neon pink We use this slip of paper to mark where we have Read, where we are reading, where we have been, Where we are going. The brilliant thing is that having A placeholder, having a signpost, having a demarcation To show how far you have come and how far you must go Is another kind of marker. It is a memory marker. In print, In pulpy bound cellulose and black ink, hold in your hand, Sniff with your nose, the real goodness of paper is that The brain creates even more memory pins for this Medium. So now, you are reading a book, but your Brain even remembers, memorizes, the geography Of the page. Where did you see that perfect sentence, At the top of page 67, How far into the book was the Rising action, the falling sequence, your brain takes in the Terrain of the page—the paragraph, the thickness of the Pages you’ve consumed thus far, becomes another kind of Topography. So intricately is our existence connected– Touch, sight, smell, taste—all being remembered Brain cells, neurons, communicating with each other Regarding the climax of the story, through an elegant Electrochemical system. A change in the electrical charge of One cell as you read and integrate the signs and symbols On the page into a larger story, triggers the release of Chemicals called neurotransmitters across synapses. The neurotransmitters are then taken up by dendrites of the Neuron on the other side of the synapse where they Trigger electrical changes in that cell. The geography that print books, and bookmarks represent only strengthens This circuit, a story arc sweeping into the hippocampus as a Permanent resident in some synapse of your 100 billion neurons
Crane House Stained Glass. Image, my own. August 2024.
Heart “So much held in a heart in a lifetime.” -Brian Doyle
I won’t ever be a surgeon But sometimes I imagine a heart beating in a human under the purposeful glare of a surgical lamp. And I have a moment to inspect this beautiful organ with my own eyes as it pushes blood throughout the body I can visualize the thick membrane of the ventricular septum– lengthening and shortening in precise time, the casing which divides the right and left heart, the chambers, the heart walls, muscles, really, that send the blood coursing through your body with constant contract-relax reflexes a miracle with every beat
Jean-Michel Basquait, Tuxedo, 1983
Nervous System
I am trying to get my words wrapped around my autonomic nervous system I am trying to describe how it feels to see a photo where I once existed and have been erased I am trying to describe the pang, the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to As Hamlet intoned, unlike Hamlet, I’m not trying to leave this life. Here’s my stab.
When I’m in fight or flight, it is harder for me to wrap my words around my nervous system. It’s those moments when I could really just use a hug– skin to skin, arms enclosing my body, keeping me safe and calm, a quilt. Instead, in flight I feel as though the part of my body that is involved in the flying or fighting is nearly numbed, gone, absent
For example, if a man walks in on his wife making love to someone else, his brain, right behind His eyes may become so activated that it feels as though a horse bucked his skull from the Inside, like eating far too much pea-colored wasabi paste in one bite, which actually happened to me, I’m sorry to return to sushi, but it was my first time, and BAM!
Right between the eyes, if I believe that I am being abandoned, left, discarded, my entire lower gut is activated with one million energy worms, I crawl with that nearly breathless, tingle that radiates Through the rest of my body as I try to wrap my words around my nervous system for safety But, in fact, I should probably lean in. Accept. Sit with it. Just the other day, when a pang really
Struck me, took me by surprise, in my solar plexus, and then the breath catching, the spin, And the whole system, consciousness, in shock, straight from the amygdala, I thought, well good, I think this gives me the chance to decide what comes next. The brain through the body gets first dibs on the experience, but I am learning to quiet my reaction, trace the source
Of the shock, I am trying to get my words wrapped around my autonomic nervous system And what I am telling you is that I am trying to describe how it feels, so that I can hijack my hypothalamus, but that is impossibly ridiculous, that my wish is that no will ever have to feel this way again, which might be the end of our species, so let’s keep flying out of our bodies
Autumn, Wasatch Mountains, Image, my own. September 2024.
See
Have you ever watched someone learn something closely? With your raw, open eyes, irises spiked wide with color, this is where miracles lie. In my classroom, students flow in and out of the physical space all day. Water. But there are moments that transcend the quirky ephemera we plaster the walls to increase engagement. Air. Like the quiet that falls on the room when you discuss the concept that maybe Thomas Aquinas was right, and you could come face-to-face with the divine on the pages of an essay you read in English class. Mountain. Perhaps you witness the that burst of energy come across someone’s being when they lift the palm sander at the finish of the final face of the joinery for their rustic bureau in woods class, when the firing is finished in the pottery studio, when the piece of silver has been hammered to perfection. Fire. Those words and worlds and ways will always be part of your fiber, your sinew, your resilience, your learning in a sorrowful, beautiful world.
People. Suh See Ok. 1988. On view at The MET Fifth Avenue. Gallery 233.
Kiai!
Kiai! is a real thing A Japanese word A shout– ichi A battle cry– ni A spirit focus– san Not just protracted Onomatopoeia or a yell in Comedy-action sequence
Kiai! is designed for real life Try it on– shi— Go! A holler that signals Attack– jou-dan Assault– tsuki Let’s make it noble– roku For purposes of this poem Make it count– rei
Don’t hurt someone undeserving– youi What’s something in your Life that you wish would Dematerialize Infinity in a kick, jab What would you like to caterwaul Into counter-offensive– gedan
Just know that when You chop their solar plexus– chuudan The center, they may be More fragile than you imagine Just a human heart– shinzo In a suit of skin, sometimes No breath returns–shichi Hachi- Yame
Fumi Yanagimoto. Contemporary Artist. Painting.
Sushi
Get in my bell You gorgeous cut Of perfectly raw Snapper and White tail You delectable rolls Of seaweed rice Naked salmon Perfectly nicked Lemon save that horrible cream sauce For another palate The best advice Ever received regarding Sushi is that if it’s good No additives are the Way to go No unnecessary dressings If it is perfectly toothy Scrumptious sushi Undecorated ditch the Wasabi and Ginger Eat it by the mouthful bare
Buddha, Chinese, early 7th century. Probably Amitabha. On view at The MET Fifth Avenue, Gallery 208.
Kali
She cradled my head in her hands a portal opened to my heart
My body silently convulsed at the chaos
The truth was I needed love more than I needed life
I needed touch more than I needed bread.
I needed tears more than I needed water.
I needed someone who understood breath, meditation, muscle, sinew
Connection, bodies, I needed someone who understood
What being left felt like I wasn’t yet beginning
To believe I would survive yet, I wasn’t able to process the complexity
All raw edges and terrifying depths of memory, I didn’t know I’d return from death
I’d come back into the sunlight, warm and buttery on my chest, all senses awake
Breath Meditation N. 27. Thoth Adan.
Full Moon, Partial Lunar Eclipse, Pisces, September 2024
the earth comes between the moon and the sun do you feel energy shift
Lunar Eclipse. Ryan Moat. January 20, 2019.
Eschatology
Life took us to the edge of the known universe
this brink, this precipice, on a red dirt plateau, all rust-verged and jagged, like a tear in heart tissue, like broken bone projecting through soft skin.
skin, bone, sinew often don’t break cleanly so there, on that terrifying cliff, we looked out into the blackness and saw that it was our own
dotted with infinite, swirling stars, nebulous arms of our galaxy, folded across that night, that nothing. we realized the instant we stepped to the fathomless limit
all the light we carried in our core could somehow save us, from this end. So into the starry, inky ebony we leapt, being careful to be sure that we crossed over the boundary between
everything we’d known, into every night we’d ever feverishly dreamed. this jump, this real act of self-preservation flung us into
the heart of the unknown cosmos and there we were to greet ourselves at the gates of our unknowing. we opened the tiny, golden latch on the
impossibly large, swinging metalwork gate, stepped slowly, quietly over the threshold of revelation, everything open and waiting for us in that pitchy gloam still had
to be sensed– felt, touched, tasted, smelled– not physically, but by the fingers of the formerly known soul that now bore this greater knowing. this
was not the end but the beginning. a larger excursus on the limitless infinite than we had previously known. we’ll never know if there
was only one way to this beginning– the ledge, the leap, the jump– our tiny, finite, blink of a guess gives us the idea that, no, there are
many precipices, many pinnacles, many paths to the infinite edges of the unknown into new reaches of galactic consciousness– seeing and knowing more than we
I won’t make it. He said. With a seriousness beyond seventeen. I’ll seize up. Freeze. I won’t be able to crawl on the ground to the escape exit, to climb the bookshelf To project myself through the ‘hypothetical’ broken glass where the star Quarterback threw the desk through the shatter-proof window. I won’t move. He said. As his brown eyes swam in a sea of fear and knowing. Lean limbed, Hair the color of a house wren’s feathers, sandy brown. Eyes knowing and wide. I won’t make it.
Desensitization comes from experiencing the same thing over and over and over So it comes as no surprise when there’s another school shooting many teachers Parents students don’t even blink, we don’t even pause to take a breath, to wonder What it would be like if someone brought a gun to our school, what would we do Instead we slip over to social media to hear snippets of the aftermath, we read A New York Times article that offers a couple more of the details of the shooting We go to work early to prepare our lessons and students move through the hallways Seemingly unaffected. But the reality is that we, as a nation, worship guns more Than we worship human life. Isn’t that strange and sad. We worship a mechanism Designed for death—to kill, to end, more than we believe in the sanctity of breath of exist- ence. What are we afraid of?
You will. I reply. You’ll make it. I’ll pick you up. He was small enough I was pretty sure I could Do it. I’ll pass you to the closest person to the window. We’ll jump through the shatters, Shards of glass all over the floor and grass beneath my classroom. We’ll make it. You’ll make It. It was the first time we’d really had to sit in the corner of the classroom, our back To wall, practicing waiting die is one of the most cognitively dissonant experiences I’ve tried Blood beating, pulsating, trembling in my ears. Cheeks hot, heartbeats rise. I won’t make it. He said. And I knew that he was probably right.
Deer Creek Reservoir, Sunset, September 2024. Image, my own.
Wonder
Open-eyed Glimmer Smile that lifts Every part of the Human frame Awe that creeps Into cheekbones That breaths On lips ready For uplift Sacred tilt of The head Stillness of shoulders Confirming Listening Sensing Magic
Pasture Plus Cows and Wheel Lines. September 2024. Image, my own.
Bike Pedal, pedal, push Push, huff, huff, up, up, over crest the tipy-top
Double Rainbow over Soldier Hollow.September 2024. Image, Corbin Wright.
Sticky
So these poems are actually micro-narratives. You can play with these at the kitchen table. I triple-dog-dare you. The premise is simple. Write a ten, 10, word narrative about yourself. Key: do not overthink this. This is such a fun little enterprise to play with in the 1010 intro to writing class I teach.
Micro Narratives. September 2024. Image, my own. Micro Narratives in Tech. Canva. Image, my own.
Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, plus Polaris, Back Porch (August 2024)
Darkness
darkness comes, bats chirruping on the midnight hunt for insects
pulsing chant of druid crickets, matching heartbeats, and the tiny slip and creak
of the garden sail sounds like no monster you were expecting, the stars are out
still and fixed until a glance, the look-again shows they’ve migrated to new horizons
moved to another sphere, other longitudes in the deepening blackness, thank god for this space,
this slow-moving, untethered rest in all the wearied world, ever more transfixed
on the clear scent of the stream, softly rolling with last night’s rain
the dark becomes more friend than day with this rhythm of the universe
coursing through rivers of stars above, all one needs is to sit, be, listen
observe the silken quiet of the moment, the breath of trees in the waves of breezes
let go the day where the push and pull of the world leaks all over your conscience
be, rest, breathe evolve, inhale the thousand whispered nutrients of darkness, night
The Club of one Kid, a solo retreat somewhere, July 2024
Rowdy
Feeling rowdy uppity
energetic overly-jazzed
sometimes I listen for the school
secretary to call down and check me
out of class Hall pass!
Freedom. Ambulation.
An uninhibited walk-about
Maybe I’ll go to Scotland or France
Sometimes I weep uncontrollably
Though I probably could ‘control’ it
I don’t wat to, sometimes
I feel undone definitely not
crazy more like that
song where Dave says you could
look inside the person’s skull and see
their mind, what’s on my mind
is ‘x’ marks the spot just above my heart
it just keeps coming up, and loneliness
sometimes on account of the ‘y’ but
I’m okay with ‘z’ fantasies for now
wanting to escape or wanting to feel
it may go either way a spectrum of emotion
Georgia O’Keefe, Pink Abstraction, 1929
Quantum Dreams
I dreamed about you last night. The most sweet, ephemeral vignette. We were sitting in my car. You were in the passenger seat.
We were both sleeping, in sound repose. The view from the car was stunning The sun was setting over a gorgeous canyon Or maybe it was rising.
That’s the quantum question. Molten crimson and fuchsia flung into the cerulean air Reflected in the clouds over vermillion sandstone and chalky copper-oxygenated azurite. You woke.
I stirred. We were both still groggy from the sleep, and the car was warm and comforting with our shared body heat.
You turned to me and said quietly… “That was so nice.” And I smiled. Content. As the dream faded, just as peacefully as it began.
Symbol of everything, Peace, solo retreat, July 2024
Refined + Rugged 