For my mother-

Looking for my  father tonight.
Now,
Now the page is blank.
Are you there?
Love,
You who will come after,
You whom are to come?

My father is gone.
My children, before me are gone.
Are you there,
You who is to come?
Still before me.

In that place left empty,
by those gone before me?
In that place left filled
by those who came before me?

Are you willing,
To take on what was not yours
To begine with;
And will be yours now?
The wight of it is not insignifigent.
It will be a burden to you,
And it is something of you
I can not ask.

Though,
If you are willing to go into that place,
I would hope that you might find joy.

That you would find comfort,
and be spared the sorrow that I have known.
And in comming into that place
be spared the sorrow
That I might have inflicted;
And that you might find your self there,
In the sorrow yet to come....

Willamette
Valley
Early summer 2009


Watching the sun come up this morning I’m thinking of Iran,
for better or worse, tearing it’s self apart, traffic on the highway, concerned
only with it’s self, and what to make for breakfast. A load of “whites” churns
in the washing machine until replaced by a load of “darks” and then hung on the line.
   Sleep rarely comes quickly anymore, even more rare is sleep uninterrupted from night until morning. Thoughts of cancer, love lost, children lost before birth, shortcomings, and failures plague my dreams. It is not surprising then, that standing in my garden early this morning, I am consumed by a sense of grief. I lament the weeds, plants not thriving for what ever reason, beds not finished to my satisfaction, projects around the house and shop unaccomplished. It is more than I would ever hope to bear.
   And yet love is tangible. It is a fallacy to think that it is not, and I would call anyone a liar who told me it was not so. We dwell in a world where love not only is an idea, or a concept, or a myth. It is attainable; Attainable in the midst of sorrow, loss, frustration, anger, grief, and cancer.
   I went to get the paper this morning, and for the first time in years, it was not there. Canceled, for lack of 34.00 a month, a cancer cutback if you will. Anyone who tells you that sacrifice, suffering, pain, and failure are not inherent in love; I would call a liar. And yet here I sit… And I am blessed. I still have Sundays paper which I was unable to read on Sunday. I have raspberries in my garden, enough not only for my self, but for
my family. I pick enough for three breakfasts, and return to the house.
In the kitchen, water boils slowly in the kettle for coffee. I make an egg, toast, and yogurt…. With raspberries. The sound of a knife over toast is some how comforting, the solid sound of my favorite coffee mug, and breakfast plate on the table is satisfying. The rustling of the paper, pages turning, brings humor…. I am blessed.
  And now here I sit, my day elegized already, as the sounds of my family waking and shuffling from bed to bath, stairway to kitchen come to me through the walls. I am blessed.

Willamette Valley Early Summer 2009

Teloche

They will take Teloche's horse from him.
Soon he will be rooted in the earth
And he will forget his horseback ways.

At dawn Teloche is the captian of the wind,
He is a horseman at first light.

Teloche's horse devoures the earth,
In stride he takes all comers.

Hedge rows are of no consiquence
and his breath is sweet.

His flanks not pistons.
pistons, were but concieved by lesser men;
Men who would controle him by force,
Who would harness him to plough
Only
Until they had invented his replacement.

When they take his horse from him,
Teloche will wander from his mind.
As the horse sweat drys to salt on his flanks
He will forget that all horses were his brothers.
And As he forgets,
Their shared blood will boil over
into a fevor and drive him mad.

   And in his madness
with out his herd,
with out his tribe,
No longer him self,
Consumed by his terror,
he will drink cold, clear water
And it will settle like iron in his bowels....
So that his bones will fall away from him.

He will stagger to a secluded place
and there lay down to die.
He will open the earth with his thrashing;
he will cut his limbs,
and dash his head upon the stones.

The cold of the earth will reach up to him,
and his last offering of warmth and blood
will go down into the earth before him.

With his last breath
Teloche will settle into the contours of the ground that holds him.
And abandon him self back to it-
                                                       The earth that he once consumed.

Something I found....

Some things catch one's eye...
like glass.
strewn across a darkened alley;
That later you find
Crushed into your boot heel.
The trick is in not thinking them diamonds,
That you then find crushed in your knees.

(No title) two things I found in an old notebook-

I.

Rain of a summers day.
The doors of the bar are thrown open to the street
It's tempting to step out of the weather,
to seek asylum amongst old men.
But my father is dead,
And Stephen has quit drinking.

II.
Now all the old men are young again,
And their wives too are young.
The young men rest their freshly shaven faces
On the shoulders of their young wives,
And bight them gently on the neck
and from their washing of dishes
they lift them off their feet,
And across the kitchen
And through the doors
thrown open to the street.

Hawaii

Tunes drift from an accordion across paridise
Under the waves wales sing to their calves, if slightly off key.
All the while bikini clad women laugh,
as they pass the old Buddhist graveyard.

I speak my children's names.....
As to hold them close to me...
the cap on my head,
I wear in remembrance of them
in remembrance of you.
my hands through my hair
and my hands upon my face
in remembrance of you...
in remembrance of them......
Them, whom I have loved.....
and her who is gone.
The three never reconciled....
Nor those who came before me,
Never reconciled.
My hands upon your hips,
never reconciled...
You
A city surrendered at my feet,
surrendered at my hands.....
given freely.
freely given.
Never reconciled.....