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

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

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

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