Poem: Believe This

Believe This

What does the week hold for me?

I cannot know except for what 

I plan. Today I will write, today

I will walk; today I will clean

The stove; today I will type a poem;

Today I will read articles from

Newspapers; today I will read a 

Magazine; today I will clean

The bathroom; today I will write:

Today I will eat pizza; today

I will cook salmon to eat; today

I will discover a new show to watch.

Today will be ordinary in a thousand

Ways but somehow it will be 

Extraordinary and I can’t know

That until the day progresses

If I even will know how extraordinary

It is ever. But in all of its 

Ordinariness today will be

Extraordinary and I will

Believe this.

January 2025

About This Poem

This is a poem that I wrote in the bleak mid-winter, reminding myself that every day is a gift no matter how ordinary or dull it may seem. Sometimes we all need that reminder. The photo is a mural on a wall in Colfax, Washington, a town that is nearby and can also seem ordinary and dull so it's nice to see such a painting reminding us that happiness is our own choice. 

 

Poem: Ever Moving

Ever Moving

Ever moving, yet Orion holds his

Quiver and bow the same every night?

Aren’t those stars moving in orbit just as 

They, in turn, are orbited by planets?

Yet we see our mythical Orion

Seemingly the same as years before now

And his image is mentioned in ancient

Scripts thousands of years old ever the same.

We may be doing the very same thing

In our constant evolutions we show,

As if on a cinema screen, the same

Constant existence in beautiful myths

In a sky all our own that we know naught

About—ever moving, ever sinning,

Ever beautiful in an eternal

Screening of a story we know nothing—

Not a single thing—about.

January 2025

About This Poem

The inspiration for this poem was the constellation Orion on a January night. I'm fascinated by the fact that all the universe is moving constantly, yet we can see the same image of a constellation every night for centuries, even millennia. Do our constant movements also form a single image like the constellations? Is it too much human hubris to think so? Or is it too much modesty to not think so? I don't know, but this poem touches on those questions and the fact that we never think about that (with the exception, maybe of this poem and a few other infrequent human musings seldom mentioned anywhere). The photo is just an iPhone photo of the Big Dipper (Ursa Major) in my back yard. I would post one of Orion, but I can't find any.

 

Poem: Blossoming Rose

Blossoming Rose

A tight little bud reveals, 

Just beneath its green, 

A brilliant splash of color—

Orange, red, white, purple, or

Pink—and reminds me 

Of you and our friendship

That over the years gradually 

Opens revealing the various

Shades of color that expand

Taking the rays of sun,

The droplets of rain

And reflect back to each other

And many others

The joy and beauty

Of friendships that endure years

Opening even wider

The joys of human connection

Just like a blossoming rose.

August 2024

About This Poem

I always gather inspiration from the roses I grow and garden. This is an example of that and applies to so many of my long-term friendships. Friendships grow and blossom, showing new things through the years and both roses and friendship are beautiful to me. The photo is one of my roses, the newest plant I have that has deep pink blooms.

 

 

Poem: The Tide Carries Me

The Tide Carries Me

Rising ever with the moon,

The tide carries me adrift

Upon this sea of humanity—

Another drop in the endless wonderment—

Atop the waves that soon

Will crash against the shore.

And wonder I must at why

I am here now. And so must you

Though we both know no good it will do

For answer we shall never have

‘Cept that which we give

Gracefully to ourselves

And this moody sea of humanity.

Are we, living beings alone

In this vast universe

Bubbling against the planetary pulls?

Or are we guided by that

To whom we endlessly call?

And grace must be

Beneath our waves.

January 2025

About This Poem

This poem is about faith and the admission that we have it but really don't know just what it is. I am appalled by the things we do because of our "faith" that flies against the tenants of almost every faith. That's when I think we might hold greater faith in leaders that we should not have faith in. That is the nature of it, being adrift on the tide. The poem says more than I can do to explain it, so I'll leave it there. The photo is of Plymouth Bay in Devon, the harbor where so many ships set sail to colonize the New World including the Mayflower. I took it this last month while I was revisiting Devon which I consider my second home.

 

Poem: Awakened by a Cold Wind

Awakened by a Cold Wind

It came upon me like I was asleep 

And woken by a cold wind

So that I pulled up the covers

Snuggling in deeper to the warmth

Of slumber. But something changed

While I slept. things familiar

Were made strange by rust,

By moth eaten holes, by time

That I did not see pass.

And now, as I wake on this morn,

I see the frost on my beard

That yesterday was black.

My babes are now grown men

Moved away to lands I had

Never seen, let alone dreamed

As in my slumber I pulled up 

The covers over my head to 

Keep warm from the cold breeze

That disturbed my slumber

And made me forget that I 

Too would grow old

And all that glitter I owned

Would rust to nothing,

Along with my clothing that became

Feed for the pesky moth

Attracted to the flame

By which I tell you.

For you too, this will be the same.

The ancestors spoke of it

And it was so, yet I 

Listened not until this morning

As if they were speaking still.

January 2024

About This Poem

This poem was inspired by the cold of January and my love for old cemeteries. So many of the early New England cemeteries have little epitaphs about paying attention to time because soon you will be where they are. It's too true and yet we ignore it. That's the slumber of life that I symbolize with the bed covers. You can read it as depressing, a warning, or a subtle reminder to enjoy what you have while you can. That is how I intend this poem for anyone reading it. I am, of course, aware that the epitaphs were written not by the dead, but the living, as is this poem. The photo is one of those old tombstones from Hull Village, an island in Massachusetts Bay near Boston.

 

Poem: Avocadoes

 Avocadoes

Groggily leering at a bowl of avocadoes

each labeled individually

of their own accord—

speaking through 

my morning haze, 

“Why do they label each fruit

individually? What are you

supposed to do with the stickers?”

I think drearily

of apple stickers 

stuck upon counters,

walls, wherever,

and how my wife 

thought it stupid

that they would let 

their children defile

the habitation that now

temporarily became ours.

“How do you know it was

the kids?” I asked,

thinking of how I’d never

seen our children eat apples without first 

being sliced individually.

And Ron has never even 

taken time to remove the sticker,

just biting into the apple

devouring peel, paper and all.

But that’s apples 

and these are avocadoes

and you never eat the peel 

of an avocado

so it can just compost itself 

away as if being swallowed

whole by a man

who is indifferent to stickers

of red delicious gala

golden delicious cosmic crisp

jonathan counter top

chair floor avocado

worms grass beetles…

And my morning thoughts 

slip drearily into breakfast

and apple slices and

avocado toast and compost

and men and women and children

and furniture and

aren’t those avocadoes arranged beautifully?

March 2021

About This Poem

This is a light attempt at free verse and what morning thoughts are like with an arrangement of avocadoes. The reality of the thinking process of this poem would occur in the time it takes to read the last line but it contains all of the random thoughts that may easily be included in the admiration of a display. Arranging thoughts on a page is definitely patterned as well, but if you do it right, it can illustrate much more than one simple thought. This is my attempt at that. The photo is of a display at a farmers stand in Yakima, Washington. Funny, but I couldn't find any pictures of avocadoes in a bowl. How they escape my photographic mind but not my poetic mind is a mystery... Still, if you focus, you will see the avocadoes arranged in the middle of the tomatoes.

Poem: The Lake

 

The Lake

The surface can be as smooth

As glass, reflecting the puffy white

Clouds and the glaring brightness

Of the sun so that just as you

Cannot look directly at the sun

You cannot look directly at the lake

Or you’ll see nothing but brightness—

Or it can be pocked with the drops

Of rain from dark clouds

So that the entire world seems gray

And gray alone—and yet again

It can be frozen solid, blending in

With the whitened world around it.

Sometimes here I immerse in summer

Or in winter walk upon it.

 

December 2024

About This Poem

This one is a work in progress. I have changed it twice just today and I see possibilities of form that I have yet to try on it. In this version it is mainly just an image of a lake, Payette Lake really, the place where I was born. The lakes and rivers of Idaho hold sway in my imagination and this poem is an example of that. The photo is Payette Lake a couple of summers ago.