moonshine

from a distance the world appears
half illuminated, an asterisk
glancing the unlit shoulder,
a footnote of sun amending unseen
mountains and rivers, restless and hard
to measure without eating the arid
or sinking deep in the shifting
as solid makes its way to sand.

lightning, a lucid ricochet
that splits the sky in an instant,
provoked by the heavens and all
they inhabit, the silt of the unnamed,
veining black into blue and white,
scatters the soft lining of another evening.
the round heel of the moon
glimmers in the dusty pools
of someone’s basement,
gliding across deserts, oceans,
and living room carpets.

we grow tired of learning
to starve without staggering.
we want for what shines, what slides
full and naked, rippling tides,
startling the placid, precipitation
slipping the smile from the somnolent,
smothering the smell of dry facts,
the sad and the sated, science,
the ritual of allowing the other
to analyze the ancient.
even the experts, god,
cannot completely unmask
without turning off the lights.

eclipse

tender, waxen, etched and worn, the ways
we’ve tried to burn, to warm the dark, soften,
yield the sole regret, return unknown
the solid, heartache, to a final lighted place.

all these depend on the leaving,
the angle of the sun, the moon, whether or not
good terms and willing allow them to pass, to pause,
offering a few the rare trick of light, the illusion
of a ring of flame, really two sovereign
coursing a measured space

to blaze a brilliant hour before the rest,
before the stolen are snipped, snuffed and blown,
until the ember still for a while on our lips,
pursing, pops and plummets, a sputtering tail,
until the last bright being flickers and fails,
a gray unwinding stretched thin, threading
is and was and may be, only once upon a time.

Because Renee…

doesn’t like my old theme–a new one for you all.

This new year was bittersweet.

making bread, still

I’ve been making bread, reminding myself of release, patience, the importance of yielding to each other, to life as it rises beneath our fists. Even the dough must exhale a little in order to make things turn out right. It’s all a matter of balance.

More or less.

It’s intuitive, all the books say. You’ve got to learn to listen, to read with your hands the changes, the messages that are right there on your fingertips. The bread will tell you what to do if you’re careful, attentive.

A poem by Robert Louis Stephenson

Fairy Bread

Come up here, O dusty feet!
Here is fairy bread to eat.
Here in my retiring room,
Children, you may dine
On the golden smell of broom
And the shade of pine;
And when you have eaten well,
Fairy stories hear and tell.

The secret to happiness

Christmas Card

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

wordle says, word to your momma

things so uncaffeneited

When pressed, we sometimes say what seems best.
The wise men will send Frank, not Frankincense.
Some mornings we wake grasping for what,
a feeling of usefulness, nearly right, but not.
Somehow instead of the phone, the remote
ends up in your purse as though you should note–
the plans for today have changed without knowing.
It’s wise to remember whose pen you have played in.
Remember when you reach for help, you can choose
to silence the laughter or raise up the fools.

stanza for today

I know you watch the roadsides
for that broken-down, aging Delilah,
hoping to answer some fainthearted plea
for help with your car jack, change her
flat tire, and send her off, whistling
into the breeze of traffic having known
some goodness in a moment
of deflated optimism.