lonely

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.

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