october

Air

| 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

Woods. Oregon Coast. Image, my own.

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

Rock, Tide, Rush. Oregon Coast. Image, my own.

Oregon

| Megan
Coastal Sunset, Falcon Cove, Oregon. Image, my own.

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

Sunset, Oregon Coast. Image, my own.

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

More sunset ii. Image, my own.

October

| 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

Lacrosse. Image, my own.

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

Aspen in October. Image, my own.

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

Rabbit Brush. Image, my own.

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

Barn and Timpanogos. Image, my own.

Outerwear in October

| Megan

Early Fall

Adobe Spark (17)

Jean Jacket, Fleece, Leather Jacket

Not all climates are created for layering, but I live in one that requires it. I still contend that even in a temperate climate, layering is possible if you evaluate your options. A jean jacket, blazer, leather bomber, or even trench coat are universal style staples sea to shining sea.

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