Align
-In celebration of
Planetary alignment
And love and life
Sometimes, like today
February 28th
All of the planets align
You commit to your
Own wild adventure,
You break sonnets
Into sentences and
Receive messages
From the sea, the
Oceans of desire
Swell and calm
And swell again
The foam of ancient
Seabeds, laid down
In marl of
Seashells, an intimate
Mixture of calcium
Carbonate and clay
Prehistoric alluvials,
A vast bed under the
Broad blue sky
Where water, once
Abundant, La Mer, is
Friable through fingers
The rise and fall
And rise of each breath
Rolls heavenward
Yet, now, all
That undulates on
That vast range
Are block horsts from
Earth’s basement,
Deepest oceans of
Molten waves,
Mountains upon
Mountains mirror
Wave upon wave
The blue sky, Everything
Signifying everything
The eons old lake,
Long gone, becomes
The background
Of our days and
Nights and days
As the full moon
Wanes and waxes
Another quantum wave
Of space and time
The Lonely Places (I)
I used to say that my family came from all the lonely places
That somehow, my diaspora got together and agreed to live
On vast plains of prairie, and in dry canyons and deserts
We moved with our own rhythm to the far north and
Set up tiny claims on sweeping vistas of the American
West, the lonely places– unwelcoming, sparsely inhabited
So as we drove yesterday across basin and range after
Basin and range, I could understand some of the longing
That knits the heart to space that confirms the lonely insides
Always looking out, through a window on the barren world
Where with delight a dusty coyote sprints across your path,
Downy woodpecker, her black mask, lights on a cottonwood branch,
There Earth’s bends, striations, upheavals, and rich history
Sit in blocks, and rocks, and mountains which carry our
Eyes beyond the present, forward and backward in time
Fox trots in and out of sage lanes and sand loops across the
Lonely, bereft, solo, alone, solitary, single, unaccompanied, one
Landscapes that require a yearning which cannot be quelled
Feminine
we are left fighting
against softness in a world
so desperate for peace
we’ve left her circles
behind to find that tech gods
of degradation
blight the entire
atmosphere, each system breeds
another fall and
trapped in arrogance
and ignorance we’re ripe for
tragedy, collapse
cycles of seasons
wind-songs and river beds all
speak her name, whisper
too soon, we sold her
sources, strength to greed-gutted
rulers, monsters, thieves
we are left fighting
for softness in a world
so desperate for peace
Refined + Rugged 