“Astronomy for the use of schools and academies.” Joseph A. Gillett (1882)
Oceanus Procellarum
His eyes the hue of all Earth’s oceans tossed In tumult (spume, spray) churn infinitely Her heart, the oceans of the moon, ensconced In basalt magma mares laid anciently He senses love and feels it coursing through Her ever-present depth, the seat of grief Conditions both are now accustomed to By life’s relentless quest to find relief Yet, love and laughter fill their atmosphere A world where they alone can live and be It saves them from an epoch of disaster– A home, a space, a place—this you and me New woven in this moment learning how Their love gives import to the here and now
Sunset over Utah Lake. (February 2025)
Sea of Scorpio
Darling, I haven’t yet told you How beautiful your eyes are Like the ocean’s depth, a sea Moved by primordial currents, dark, Yes, below the surface, but there Beautiful, almost infinitesimal Flecks of ochre, golden troves, In the rippling rich blue that Remind me of the entire universe Contained in that chasm, which Is to say soul, kelp ribbons Amber stones, acorn barnacles, Brittle stars brought to surface by Maelstrom. Sign that all the Depths you’ve fathomed where You learned through excruciating Joy and wracking gladness, an Abyss rife with life and pain, Eternal you, there laid bare Inside your beautiful eyes
A torche glitters in her hand, a brightly whishing brand lighting the ways– a choice, the path you take, the path you don’t, all paths you leave behind– they are equally lighted by her candle, paths you can see now and will never be
revealed again, in the flickering breath the shadows cast into the recessed flume, the light loses its brilliance, the gravel of the third way spooled out along the straighter path, and the second road banking darkly into the far side of some
gray and dusty landscape which even the brighted stars cannot now expose, So what does this goddess of the dark night and her burning wooden beam divine, does the curve of her hip signal some portent, message of direction,
no, the way, the path, the journey will not be signaled by another, you must choose, you must contemplate, intuit, and define your bounds your path will be yours, after all, your own, so you must own your choice
wavering again, the flame whispers from some fate-wind ahead, some ancient breath of the beyond, you grip the paper of your healing in your pocket and take one long breath, exhaled in the rising chill, a mist
spurled ahead, looking up into the star-strewn night the weight of the choice comes softly on the shoulders of the traveler, an unseen cloak, take a small but firm step toward the flume, the future
Canemah Bluff Nature Park. Oregon. Image, my own.
Clay
Molded and molding, shaping, shifting, pressure, smooth tension, long lines a steady firmness, spirit of water, sunlight, earth, release, become
New Moon Amulet. December 2024. Image, my own.
Talisman
Can any thing be magic? Any blob of gold or Pressing of silver, can An object, an item, a Pinecone or umber fleck of Bark be imbued with Power or general chemistry That brings transmutational Ability, alchemy, divination
Canemah Bluff Nature Park. Oregon. Image, my own.
Some grief never leaves
And I know this because of arthritis Some grief is permanent, the relationship With a parent that you’ll never have, the Child who never entered your life, the Star that never rose in its proper place There will be some things that leave Mortally permanent scars, situations Which will never be shifted into Redemptive tales. Some scars Will ever be with us to remind us How pain and grief bring understanding Gained in no other way,
Starlight street at night. Fukuōji Kazuhiko.
Journey
It began to ring true Several steps from where The grief began, the opening of the way, the continued rock and slosh of the water Eyes opened on a world And existence that was nothing Like what tiny kernel of promise In life began as. Nothing like the seed of the idea of the life you thought you’d live, the contrast was searing and startling at first. But then, by gradual degrees, it became whole, sound, founded, and sacred opportunity
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
Balance. Oregon Coast. Image, my own.
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
Green things and fog. Image, my own.
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
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
People. Suh See Ok. 1988. On view at The MET Fifth Avenue. Gallery 233.
Kiai!
Kiai! is a real thing A Japanese word A shout– ichi A battle cry– ni A spirit focus– san Not just protracted Onomatopoeia or a yell in Comedy-action sequence
Kiai! is designed for real life Try it on– shi— Go! A holler that signals Attack– jou-dan Assault– tsuki Let’s make it noble– roku For purposes of this poem Make it count– rei
Don’t hurt someone undeserving– youi What’s something in your Life that you wish would Dematerialize Infinity in a kick, jab What would you like to caterwaul Into counter-offensive– gedan
Just know that when You chop their solar plexus– chuudan The center, they may be More fragile than you imagine Just a human heart– shinzo In a suit of skin, sometimes No breath returns–shichi Hachi- Yame
Fumi Yanagimoto. Contemporary Artist. Painting.
Sushi
Get in my bell You gorgeous cut Of perfectly raw Snapper and White tail You delectable rolls Of seaweed rice Naked salmon Perfectly nicked Lemon save that horrible cream sauce For another palate The best advice Ever received regarding Sushi is that if it’s good No additives are the Way to go No unnecessary dressings If it is perfectly toothy Scrumptious sushi Undecorated ditch the Wasabi and Ginger Eat it by the mouthful bare
Buddha, Chinese, early 7th century. Probably Amitabha. On view at The MET Fifth Avenue, Gallery 208.
Kali
She cradled my head in her hands a portal opened to my heart
My body silently convulsed at the chaos
The truth was I needed love more than I needed life
I needed touch more than I needed bread.
I needed tears more than I needed water.
I needed someone who understood breath, meditation, muscle, sinew
Connection, bodies, I needed someone who understood
What being left felt like I wasn’t yet beginning
To believe I would survive yet, I wasn’t able to process the complexity
All raw edges and terrifying depths of memory, I didn’t know I’d return from death
I’d come back into the sunlight, warm and buttery on my chest, all senses awake
Breath Meditation N. 27. Thoth Adan.
Full Moon, Partial Lunar Eclipse, Pisces, September 2024
the earth comes between the moon and the sun do you feel energy shift
Lunar Eclipse. Ryan Moat. January 20, 2019.
Eschatology
Life took us to the edge of the known universe
this brink, this precipice, on a red dirt plateau, all rust-verged and jagged, like a tear in heart tissue, like broken bone projecting through soft skin.
skin, bone, sinew often don’t break cleanly so there, on that terrifying cliff, we looked out into the blackness and saw that it was our own
dotted with infinite, swirling stars, nebulous arms of our galaxy, folded across that night, that nothing. we realized the instant we stepped to the fathomless limit
all the light we carried in our core could somehow save us, from this end. So into the starry, inky ebony we leapt, being careful to be sure that we crossed over the boundary between
everything we’d known, into every night we’d ever feverishly dreamed. this jump, this real act of self-preservation flung us into
the heart of the unknown cosmos and there we were to greet ourselves at the gates of our unknowing. we opened the tiny, golden latch on the
impossibly large, swinging metalwork gate, stepped slowly, quietly over the threshold of revelation, everything open and waiting for us in that pitchy gloam still had
to be sensed– felt, touched, tasted, smelled– not physically, but by the fingers of the formerly known soul that now bore this greater knowing. this
was not the end but the beginning. a larger excursus on the limitless infinite than we had previously known. we’ll never know if there
was only one way to this beginning– the ledge, the leap, the jump– our tiny, finite, blink of a guess gives us the idea that, no, there are
many precipices, many pinnacles, many paths to the infinite edges of the unknown into new reaches of galactic consciousness– seeing and knowing more than we
Refined + Rugged 