“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
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
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
Four little poems for your day. Happy, Merry sweet humans. xx MM
Central Park bathed in sunshine (June 2024).
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Flow
flow can be the essence of knowing the power of prescience the smell of petrichor the smooth surface of an ocean tossed pebble, translucent amber the great wave of goodness but flow can also be the tumultuous spume, the glassy, wind-bereft waters, the deep, dark, depths the void, the unknowing don’t forget that flow has many ways and many waves
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Into the Green
There are more words, expressions, descriptions of green in human language than are intoned for any other chroma
when you are draped in green golded and guilded in green it is completely obvious why this hue
green captures the eye grounds the heart breaths through the body as you realize that you’re respirating
at the same rate as the statuary oak next to you the ash is breathing out a sigh of joy, just as you do
The cottonwood leaves glittering green, making a magical cacophony of nearly silent whispers which crescendo into a forte of breezy, winsome refrains
aspen, largest living organism, holding ground in root and spear as they shiver and rattle in green all their own a sort of awe and wonder at once
alluring, regenerative, stable, steady, cholrophyllic music, all love-mixed whimsy and reality each leaf a hard-earned medallion, sign of life
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Reverberation
It’s impossible to feel alone soaking in the reverberation of humanity ringing through the great halls of civilization. The echo. The sound. The deconstructed interplay of all those expressions and explications bouncing and bounding around in the domed, arched architecture. Dancing over the simulacra, art, massive and tiny, representative of nothing and everything. The absolute alacrity the beatific joy of each repercussive utterance. Jazz. A fusion of improvisational auditory stimuli. The resounding transcendence of humanity in the envelope of a space. Astonishing.
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Tuesday
On a Tuesday in December Life will eventually present you with the fact that you have absolutely no answers not one
I don’t use that word lightly—fact
On a Tuesday in December, You’ll be opened wide by the love of the people who have offered you a life raft,
A golden, glittering net—a light, a torch.
You’ll come to the understanding, the conclusion, that life brings you many endings, many beginnings to teach you
that life has no end no beginning
it simply is this beautiful imperative this open, pulsing opportunity at love that you will never receive again, this moment this is it
Oregon coast putting on a glorious show. (June 2023)
Refined + Rugged 