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
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
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.
Scrub Oak in Transition, September 2024. Image, my own.
Autumn Equinox
there is this balance, this even-keeled consciousness, an equanimity of the breath in the air this time of year, the night and the day coming into equilibrium, living and dying reflected in the vegetation, the need for both action and rest, moving and pause, all things in their time and space
Rubber Rabbitbrush, September 2024. Image, my own.
Evolve -for the elders who’ve shone a light along the way
I’ve been watching the course of Life more closely as I’ve neared ‘halfway’
I’m totally clear, I may die tomorrow of a fungal infection brought on by an errant hang nail
This year, I started to see and understand some parts about this journey called life,
Facets that had never been open to me before, that had never been revealed
In youth. I began to witness the power of personal human evolution.
I’m sure I’ve seen it displayed previously, but now, it seemed closer, more raw and real
The strength, the peace, the solidarity, and grounding that some humans
Offer themselves and others when they choose to live with their arms stretched
Up to the divine, when they’re moving forward in purpose while trusting the
Siren song of the universe to guide them to good ends, and over hard roads, too, don’t
Mistake. I don’t think that living this evolution is simple in any way. To allow the
Lessons that life has offered you to be inculcated into your core, this isn’t a flat
Path, rather peaks and valleys, I see my mother who pursues her passions like watercolor and arts
Grant writing without prompting or celebration, and steadily understands
what she loves, what she holds dear and then lifts up those elements of her
Life, tending to her own garden of desire, she invests her best self in her and us.
All I’m saying is that for a very long time I felt completely perplexed with the recipe of this
thing I was witnessing– evolution– my septuagenarian friends, were practicing this
Art of living with purpose, too, with love and with a fair dose of spicy ironic interjection
Swimming every day, hiking all over the hills and valleys of our home
They were another of my sign-posts. And my uncle, who spoke the eulogy at
My aunt’s celebration of life, a woman who also lived and gave her life over to joy,
He has also chosen to live in the miracle of the era of man, to let life
Be the ocean, the teacher, and he became the student, he’s allowed those learnings
To become part of him in the way he loves his children, the way he acts
In community, the way he carries the knowing that life will always be a question, a universal
Query that we can only answer by living more truly, more soundly, more surely in verity
To that Flame that was lit within us at our birth, the miracle of existence realized, we evolve
Lights. September 2024. Image, my own.
On Being
be who you are and who you can be, and meet those two verities inside yourself with loving kindness and compassion and let it be enough to experience the joy of living as you see fit as you love yourself
Andrew Wyeth Grasses, September, 2024. Image, my own.
Steady in the Fall
the sun and moon move into equilibrium waxing crescent to quarter
peloton of geese ride high in the wide blue sky, calling and answering back, headed south
flowers still bloom, delicate violet saturated yellow, vibrant magenta, as grass fades, sepia to umber
fully bronze dragon fly the size of a silver dollar flickers past in the sun chased by a saxe blue fly the same size
grasshoppers bunch on mustard rabbitbrush in the sway of breeze next to dark-chocolate velvet cattails, stalks steeped in pond-water
cooper’s hawk cries from the brush high and free like an alter ego finding the next rodent in the undergrowth
the air takes on the rush and pulse of crisp wind as the sun’s rays angle longer, cooling field, flower, and fly
Refined + Rugged 