center

Jupiter and the Pleiades. November. Northern Hemisphere. Image, my own.

Holocene

When the sky lifts, so lapis and milky blue,
Your ocular senses are overwhelmed
The owl calls out, into and through the pencil-
Sketched branches of the cottonwood, then
Down from the neighbor’s roof, as the golden

Sky continues to lift into day, a flat aquamarine
The stark lines of leafless branches against
The air stand beckoning, the promise and
Possibility of new– growth, change, revivification
Glittering diamonds of momentary snow still

Hold winter’s mystery. We do not know what
We will be when the new buds come, but only
What is– this moment, this tree, this
Possibility of everything, anything
Makes our heads spin and swim

Bounded by our humanness, mortality
Consequence, but dazzled by all that is
In us– the roads we’ve wandered, mountains
We’ve scaled, journeys taken and joyed over
And travailed. So much unknown

It still feels like the owl is a good omen
Round white face, deep open amber eyes, wide
And night-visioned, all the flecks and freckled feather
patterns of each wing spread against dawn and dusk
Gifts that portent deaths and lives to come

No Name Saloon. Park City. Image, my own.

Shoes

When your shoes wear
out
run like hell through
tulip fields
Take off
to the mountains
Climb every geologic
Formation
Just to
Prove
You’re alive
You can
You’re not dead… yet
You still want
To spend that
moment with the crickets
under night’s blackness
only the stars
know you’re there

When your shoes are
worn out
you take your daughter to
the gravel pit
and train
your camera lens
on the North Star
tripod so still
to prove
you know
where you are going
even though you
Don’t
you depress
the shutter
let the sky bleed in
for hours
and all you are left with
is time

No time left
But you have those
Shoes
to remind you
to keep you
on your journey
Home–
Through–
Around–
To–
To that time
When the cosmos
smudged its glory
across the lens of
your camera
Film
Still
the most sure sign
that the stars
will fall in
to center
North
Balance
bringing these stars
to you

Autumn Sunset. November 2024. Image, my own.

Question(s)

For all those who question:
Borders
Boundaries
Countries
Alliances
Allies
Friends
Enemies
Economies
Lovers
Children
Fools
Frauds
Race
Place
Faith

I love you

Winter Dandelion. Acrylic on heavyweight cotton paper. Margo Elizabeth Glass. 2024

Night Guide

When Ursa Major dips so low
In the Northern Hemisphere that
Only her two guiding stars are
Visible in the deep of darkness
Black, the seven sisters start to rise
Pleiades, in silent winter’s night as
Cassiopeia, queen, stands out above
The calm chill also pointing her way to our
Closest cosmic simulacrum Andromeda
The stars are there, uncaring and seemingly
Cold, distant even impossibly far, and yet
Known, seen, perceived though the crickets
Haven’t made a sound, the air, nearly
Incorporeal breaths of rest, sleep,
A thousand dreams take flight

Moon, Venus, Timpanogos. Image, Steve Olpin.

Poppies, West Yellowstone, 2021. Image, my own.

Hunger

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.