Respite

The cats
are restless
and alert,
sensing the stir
of airs and wings
beyond
the window’s glass.

(like a lamb?)

High clouds
thinning
toward blue.
(The news
is anything
but new)
One wants 
to forget
all but
the scent
of hyacinth
and daffodil,
in this brief
respite
from cold
and rain

Orting, WA

The river
rages
between the banks
furious
to find the sea,
foaming
over stone,
tearing
at roots.

Mountain
behind
clouds.

This town
built
on the graves
of forests.
The boulder
in the park
placed there
millennia ago.
Real estate agents
whisper their
required warnings
then smile.
Profit
before
people
always

autobiography

Scrapbooks,
disconnected tales
we tell around
photographs,
the context lost,
but re-imagined,
the narrative
of a life

Of our lives

That memory
is fiction:
scraps of recall,
scraps of stories
we have told
so often
they become true,
dream scraps
that lost their place
in shadow,
words
filling gaps

Bored with rain

The stems
of last Summer’s
petunias
stand in concrete
urns, trailing
webbed leaves
in coffee
colored water.

Still,
it rains.

Now that they can
sell my history,
any history,
will they try
to sell
these rainy days,
my restless
boredom,
pulling one book 
after another
off 
dusty shelves

fragments of uncertain location

Fragments
of uncertain
location: We
mortals make
cities, he
could not decipher
the apocryphal
text (secret,
mysterious)

(if Prometheus molded)

Larks dart
through midday
over sea,
no smoke rises
from a poet’s
sacrifice
(and you’re not 
of some
other clay)
I sing only
what
is well
attested.

gods

I awoke
to the sound
of wild geese
flying overhead,
my mind
still lingering
in the dark.

Dreams, 
still vivid.

Down shadowed
stairwells
to a cellar
with a hard dirt floor.
Looking
not finding.
She said:
We do not
pursue
the gods; 
the gods
pursue
us

Crumbs

(Whatever 
I dreamt 
of
has vanished
in the gray 
light
leaking through 
a gap
in the curtains

less than fragments

crumbs, 
perhaps,
pecked from the grass
by the robins
that hop through
the back yard,
then startle,
all at once
at a stray dog’s
bark)

Contigency

I wrote this yesterday, but posted today

They will
afford
you no care.
“Failure to thrive,”
they say of thin infants.
So this
government

Building space stations

One must plan
for every
contingency,
have a clear path
for consensus
for moving forward
every life
depends on clarity
of function
and action.

Already

There will be
new leaves,
already
two cherry trees
brighten
the dull slope
above 
the railroad
tracks.

Spring sunlight slants

across mud
rutted fields,
clouds, already,
muting the sun.
The silver light
dulling
to pewter
on the long rows
of standing 
water

Eaves

The eaves
on which the pigeons
sit, is stained
with green strips
from moss
and continual
rain.

(They fly away)

The windows
in the brick
below are curtained
closed--
nothing to see
out here
where the sun
has turned
away
from us

Daffodills

All things 
being equal, 
can we,
at last,
dispel the darkness
which has crept
into every
corner?

(This vernal dawn)

It does not take
a congressional
investigation
to uncover
the surprising yellow
of these daffodils
blooming
among cut
rose bushes

Life support systems

When making space stations
it is not enough
to consider only
the power
and life support systems.

One must consider

the life
which systems
were designed to support.
They will not be
perfect
machines.
One malfunction
could
endanger
all.

cages

This was written yesterday, but late and I was too tired to enter it into the blog

despite 
the absent
sun, birds
pic through
the growing grass
and spreading
clover—spring
won’t be
denied.

(the music died)

(your lies
are the bars
of a cage
you can’t escape:
none of this day’s
promises
are yours)

Last train

This was actually written yesterday, but I didn't get it posted until today.

So,
last train home,
or maybe,
some different track
entirely,
switched
to a side rail
to idle.

The curious crows

hopping beside a puddle
standing water
everywhere
mute testimony
to these winter rains
resisting
any spring
sign

judgements

Budgeting 
fear,
as if walls
and tanks
made anyone
safe.
(blue skies
drifting
back to gray)
sad-
ness

A departing airplane

Day-
dreams of
Hawaii
where warm seas
wash pristine
sands
and
Palms sway 
content in
sound
judgement

Damp protest

“Beware—“
the rain’s
tyranny
oppresses these
gray afternoons.
The sodden
policies
of resistance.
These silver
rivulets.

Banners of sunlight

limp on poles
carried
ahead of the damp march
forward
toward a more
brilliant
spring.

PI

The circle
I draw
in the sand
becomes
the moon
on water
when the tide
washes
in

The imprecise ratio

“If nature
had to calculate 
Pi . . . ,
there would be
no bubbles”
(Buckminster Fuller
attrib.)

Equation

Skin-
script: equation
inked from
elbow to wrist,
the gist of which
explains all,
or some,
of it.

A waveform
collapse

The realized instant
(unexpected
white crocuses
in rain) the cat
is merely 
annoyed.

Crocuses

A few petals
despite
the cold
as if maybe
spring
or
that there is
some breath
beyond

Cluster of crocuses

A
ragged purple
beside the sidewalk
among
last year’s
dead
leaves

algorhythms

The algo-
rhythmic
dance 
of ignorance
and defeat--
the wind
whips
the banners
above the street:
swirling
litter.

Hold your hat.

If you
iterate
over your steps
the sequence
becomes
clear.

Shadows

There are no
data
for how the rain
bleeds light
from the day:
trees limbs weave
shadow.

The dampness intrudes

A certain dimness
spreads
from the conference
hall corners

Refuse

Taking refuge
amid
the refuse:
tent pitched
under an overpass.
Drum of
commerce
on the highway
overhead.

At the edges—

(a side glance
out the window
passing by)

Ash

This moment's
moment
after, the taste
of ash
in the mouth--
sometimes
I embrace
the rain: 
standing
wet.

Listen, 
or not—

Starlings
rising from railyards
shards
of thought.

Standing Water

Some-_
thing
about the bright
water that stands
open
in every field
distracts me
from the usual 
lies.

(Shards from dreams)

No patience
for platitudes
this morning

Restlessness

When
the promise
of bright mornings,
falls
to the restlessness
of dull afternoons
(a vague unease

(what’s left undone

(as if
given enough
time)))

Green Lake

The surface of the lake
borrows its colors
from all
that surrounds it:
white aspen,
sky,
clouds.

This encircling trail.

We too reflecting,
reflected.

Recusal

Spring has 
recused
itself. The wind
chimes attest
winter will never
end. The trees
sway in concert.

These cold mornings.

Rain blur
afternoons

This day

For every day, there is a day
in which it
is no longer
remembered, 
its light lost—

(his late recusal)

this day

Reflections

Trees, standing in water, 
paint the surface--
these one-time skies--
a gaggle of wild geese
caught between

Wetlands beside warehouses

March