My new chapbook

 My new chapbook, Only the Dance, is now available on Amazon.

Evensong

butterflies flutter 

from the artist’s brush

in memoriam—

a river of monarchs

once flowed across the sky

slow spirals

up the summer sky—

scavengers

cleansing my mind

of its dark residue

I follow a path

of spindrift oak leaves

to a clearing

where no cabin ever stood—

its hidden hearth my home 

the day

closes its circle

around me

silver voices 

re-enchant the dusk

to keep at bay

the wolfish dreams,

I sleep

with gentle sorrow

cradled in my arms

~red lights 15:2, June, 2019

limb from limb

morning light

gilding the treetops

as they fall

splinters lodge

in my paperbark heart

the sound

of limbs being broken

as if on a wheel—

bloodless the fallen hollies,

the heart of pine laid bare

the blunt thrust

of a bulldozer,

the shudder 

of tissues torn apart—

who cries for the earth me too

a box turtle

crushed by the skidder’s tread

at the edge

of the leftover woods

this barricade of spiders’ silk

plumes of smoke

rise from the clearcut

silvery as ghosts

the sound of wind chimes

before the hurricane

may the words

that tumble from my tongue

be turned to moss—

creep over the wounded land,

bury the cities of men

~Ribbons 15:1, winter 2019

A Thousand Oaks and the Tree of Life

thoughts & prayers

for Parkland . . . and so many more

seventeen more

black arm bands

on a nation’s soul—

yet the guns stand erect

as the coffins go down

NRA

blazoned across his back—

I look

for the blood

on his hands

on foolscap,

I write letters

to my Senator—

thirty pieces of silver

jingle in his pocket

~Atlas Poetica 32, spring 2018 

whistling in the dark

a meeting

of the Flat Earth Society

in my state capital—

looney birds roosting

in the Land of Trump

from the throne

of a naked emperor

torrents of words 

like day-blind bats

twitter across the sky

on the radio

the usual blather

about causes

of gun violence—

a wren burbles in the frost

worshippers

kneel in a river 

of blood,

lifting clasped hands

to the god of guns

bereft of words

I kneel and listen:

lullabies 

in falling snow 

the silent sparrows

emptiness—

the discarded bottle

in my hand

sings at every step

the wind’s low note

deer entrails

at the meadow’s edge—

I divine

the will of the gods

in a chickadee’s whistle

~Atlas Poetica 32, spring 2018 

Gossamer

the thinning

of the leaf-green veil

at Samhain

the colors of another world

break through

hummocks

of golden grass

let loose

a volley of birds . . .

thoughts tumbling skyward

one white stone

plucked from the gravel—

again and again

I toss it into the blue

to catch its fleeting gleam

the lines 

of a poem I’ve yet to write

tangled

in the silver ribbons

of a lost balloon

splitting 

the silver milkweed pod,

Pandora lets loose 

upon the autumn earth

a raft of spindrift wishes

~Skylark 4:1, summer 2016

canticle

driven

by shifting winds

a crow

with white-barred wings . . .

my yearning for omens

who am I

to lose what little 

faith I ever had . . .

the redbird still sings 

in the apple tree

leaf shadows

shimmer and pulse

on an orb web

shining in morning light—

the clerestory of my mind

she flees

along a silken thread

to lie hidden

in the curve of a leaf,

whoever wove this world

the song

of  blade on whetstone

as the meadow 

falls to the scythe . . .

nunc dimittis

~Skylark 6:1, summer 2018

the streambank

another death . . .

I follow a path

thick with oak leaves

turning into soil,

nourishing the roots

rose hips 

and holly berries 

glistening 

in deep green hedgerows

winter quickens its wings

the brook

vanishes beneath the earth

to rise again

in a spatter of bluets 

. . .  this runnel of hope

~Ribbons 12:2, spring/summer 2016

quicksilver

autumn harvest  . . .

moldering hay bales

sprout new grass

even as the whetted scythe 

mows down the years

no one

told me of his death,

the last

of my mother’s siblings . . .

ripples on the pond’s dark eye

the moon

so far beyond my reach

and yet I drink

from its reflection

this dipperful of light

other mothers’

diamond brooches . . .

I buff

the mossy jadestone

of her silver-legged frog

~Ribbons 12:1, Winter 2016

gone

the scream

of a red-tailed hawk

over the wood

where dozers wait—

my silent cry an echo

the giraffe

earns a place

on the Red List—

Gaia’s ghost

haunts my dreams

stacking stones

to build a cairn . . .

balancing

Earth’s bones,

I awaken to vertigo

fifty years

from discovery

to extinction—

a Pagan reed-warbler

sings in my heart

4% survived

the Permian extinction,

giving rise

to all that lives . . .

and to my flightless hope

~Ribbons 13:1, Winter 2017