tide

Pacific Ocean, Oregon Coast. Image, my own.

Creation

creation is like wielding the mystery for a moment
being given the chance to turn the nautilus over in
your hands and awe for a few precious flashes
its precise and perfect structure, wonder at being
given transubstantiational power, snippet of the
infinite, devotional on the unity of all the cosmos
unraveled, a glittering equilibirc instant

Driftwood, grass, trees, stones. Image, my own.

Shit That Makes Poets Laugh

a couplet of haiku
getting to write the word
Uranus
espousing astrology while
being an unbeliever
writing all the people
you know into poems
recording the natural
world and wishing for
more smell words—the
olfactory is important,
man, and so under
expressioned—playing with
all mediums of art– music,
history, science, language,
painting, sculpture, theater–
being a badass generalist
the fact that mostly poets
read your poems
realizing that everything
is art, and it’s easier
than you think to tell
someone to fuck off
trying to figure out
if anyone really has an
editor? (Maggie Smith,
in my dreams you’re
reading this and cutting
and slashing, and un en-
jambing to your heart’s
delight.) Hearing that
one of Mary Oliver’s
best poems, ‘Wild Geese’
was an exercise, and
experiment in end-
stopped lines performed
for another poet, a magic
trick (hear Krista Tippet’s
interview with Oliver
on her unparalleled podcast
*On Being*)
realizing that your fly is
down, thank you John
Craigie
trying to figure out the
infinite mystery while
trying to figure out
american politics while
simultaneously realizing
that life is built on water
looking up the word ‘word’
in a thesaurus
realizing that you
should have hidden an
easter egg in all of your
work and you’ve forgotten

Libra Season

As Libra season concludes, I’d like to
invite all of us to love a lot of Libras
for the next few days. Like
my triple air massage therapist,
bless her. And my best friend of
all time, he could not be more elegant and
nuanced in his approach to the world, and people
who I don’t even know, and people I once knew
all air signs, maybe it is the open-hearted
pleasers, balancing their relationships, the “we”
that Libras present, it’s that fire in me that
always gets stirred up by the scale and measure,
skin and bones, maybe it is the quality of the
breeze this time of year that makes me
fall in love with Libras, a little more each
October, regardless, I breath the unruly whips
of Wind and Rain, the scatter of leaves,
the romance of dying with Libras in mind

Hunter’s Moon. Super Moon. Full Moon. October 2024. Image, my own.

Chap Book
best is the open
chap book on the soul leave it
vulnerable in air

Lovng Hard (no i)
Sussing and figuring
and preparing and
planning as to how
to love
difficult people:
Drive the Bus,
Like Mo Willems’
Pigeon, in the
front seat
Self-assured, ready
Without license, but
there is no playbook
to love these difficult,
purposeless individuals
NPCs, people who have,
a bit, burned out on life
Who see the end, but
seem to have no ideas
on wellness or whole
ness- are not willing or
able to take the reins
any longer, who are
Offensive and rude
Blunt without purpose
Unmeasured in their
Aimless wanderings
through Time and
Space, Pretentious in
their lack of attention
to others, Tough

Summer Triangle. Oregon, October. Image, my own.

Noordwijk, Netherlands; North Sea Shore. January 2023. Image, my own.

Regret

I stood in the tide of
the North Sea
and I should have dived in.
I should have stripped
off my clothes
like an overgrown baby
and screamed and
squawked into the surf

I should have shrugged
off my care for my
friend’s husband. I’m
sure he would have
politely turned around
if I’d asked.
then I’d have had to
contend with the flotsam

on the beach, but that
wouldn’t have mattered,
half shells, stones, sponges
even the cuts on my
feet would have been
worth it if I’d boldly
yawped into the bubbling
spume, a signal

to the universe that I knew,
I saw what was coming
next (which is a lie)
but in that moment,
to prove to myself I was
animate, to confirm I
could do anything, to
beat my chest at the

edge of the world,
to be alive,
especially if I had
known everything that
would begin– days
later– the layers of dreams
I’d have to divest,
the altar I’d have to burn

in sacrilege, the pain that
would engulf me, the end
This is important because
now I know that my
jaunt into the North Sea
would look pale,
naked, unfeathered in
comparison to reality

and it really wouldn’t
have changed anything.
the tide would have
rolled, salt-gray, rhythmic,
unforgiving, over me
as the lanterns burned
brightly in the beach house
but it’s one thing I may
always regret

Flotsam of the North Sea. Noordwijk, Netherlands. Image, my own.

Ghost

You never think
That someone will pass through you
Like the ghost of who they once were
Like the spirit of a person you once knew

You never think
That it could hurt so badly to unravel
Like every color of who they were was in you
Like each thread that stitched you all together was undone

You never knew
What death while someone is alive feels like
What saying goodbye without saying anything means
What one body of pain can experience

Until you knew

Tide. North Sea, Noordwijk, Netherlands. Imgae, my own.

Comfort

sink into the folds
of an oversized chaise
tuck your body between
the seat cushion
and english arm
rest your head on the
soft folds of the chenille
bolster, squish and
knead yourself into
the billows of down fill
rest all of yourself in
there to see if you’ll
be safe from the storm

Directions. Noordwijk, Netherlands. Image, my own.

Celebrate

listen, don’t you forget
that even days of sorrow
can be days of celebration
that’s the paradox
we were born for this

My House at Night. Noordwijk, Netherlands. Image, my own.

Spoon

if you bring your thighs
right under the nook
of my knees
and the bulk of your
body right into the
curve of my hips
and your chest flush
with my back and
wrap yourself around
me all night, I
may remember what
love, and safety, and
sighing in peace
really feels like
I’ll be home again
quiet, delicious, hazy jazz
you’ll quell my longing