Insomnia sits

insomnia sits
on the cracked shell of dreams
and stares at the night-stained walls

she keeps company
with grief and guilt
sipping frequently from worry

stars that peek
through the web of memory
offer little heat or heart in the mean hours

and the clock's red eye
keeps a bleary watch
against any crooked finger of rest

there's a twist
to the sheets
and to the mind that doesn't sleep

First snow

morning sun, suffused by cloud,
glowing at the brink of the hill,
casts a shaft of yellow light
on the pale trunk of
the bare sycamore

birds in the branches above
are singing, too


Click on the photo to see a larger version.
This isn't the sycamore; it's an ash. By the time I got back outside with my camera, the light had shifted and much of the snow melted.

November camp

we wake slowly
emerge from our bundled nest to
breathe in the chill before
the sun breaches the ridgeline

high on the hill, leaves
lie still under
the first slight snow that
softens all contours

smoke from the fire
swirls in slow circles

leafless branches gently scratch the
flat, pale grey sky


Click on the photo to see a larger version. It's worth it.

Gratitude

I've much to be grateful for this holiday. A roof, food, health, warmth, love, words, song. Life.

What are you grateful for these days?

I'm going to temporarily abandon my accustomed roof to spend the next couple nights in a tent. I'll see you next week.


Click on the photo to see a larger version.

Between raindrops

the sky hangs close
a blanket wrapped about us
spun in greys and blues

her shining hazel eyes
carry me
to early years —

small upturned face
eyes and mouth blinking open
catching treasured drops
wordlessly


Click on the photo to see a larger version. It's worth it!

Whelk

her sentences curve away in
labyrinthine infinities,
vague swirls
and an ever-receding horizon line

her soft interiors are salty,
muscular, coiled
and unavailable
a fascination of secret compartments

hard-shelled,
she moves carefully, is
surprisingly and slowly carnivorous,
her piercing eyes bore holes
if you linger too long

do not mistake her,
calm and smooth,
curvaceous and sensual,
for vegetarian


Inspired by a spam email subject, "was he whelk," this is a completely fictitious portrait.
Click on the photo to see a larger version. This is a manipulation of a stock photo.

November rumination

wild turkeys scuttle
through bare-limbed woods, the cold wind
cruel as a blade's edge

autumn's crisp leaves snitch
whispering betrayals in
the winter wind's ear

under brittle skies
what secrets lie in wait to
trip the likes of you?

Along the ridgeline

Along the ridgeline the hills unfold,
singing lullabies of the night.
Making a bed of velvet and gold
along the ridgeline, the hills unfold.
Stories of love the moon has told
are strung in sentences of light
along the ridgeline. The hills unfold,
singing lullabies of the night.


This poem uses the triolet form. I was inspired by Floots' foray into form today. As usual, click on the photo to see a larger version.

Remainders

listening to the chimes in the wind,
to the soft brush of branches
against the side of the house,
you curl your body
around the hollow of the night

around the quiet ache of losses,
count the remaining leaves
that whisper their stories to the glass,
clouds that stumble across the sky
longing for the pinpricked stars,
and the lonely half moon
that carries forward

curl around that pool of darkness,
drink of it and sleep,
rest and dream and wait
for morning's slow salve
the silent song of
the eastern sky


This is a manipulation of a stock photo.

Holding

a heart deepens daily,
when it is held open the way
gold-shot dark clouds

stretch the blue
wide open
and hold, and hold,
til the glorious sun drops

Click on photo to view larger. It's worth it!

Memed

I've been tagged by rdl to tell five "interesting or unique" things about me that you didn't know. Here goes:

1. These apples grew behind my house and some of them recently disappeared into a pie.
2. I have lived in eight states and three other countries.
3. I grew up without a TV in the house.
4. I have been known to buy things because they had a beautiful label.
5. I don't especially like talking on the phone, but I love to read aloud.

Election Day morning: haiku

It's an election day haiku party at Dave's house. He's got some great ones and is asking for more. Go join in!

Morning after rain

breathing in the soft damp that
beads still on the grass
that rounds the air

with smells of bark and dirt
spice of the earth
rising after rain

kissing the cheek
the sky like a big pearl
this is the way I like to wake


Click on photo to view larger.

Darkness

the edge of ice cuts
against the last of the green
darkness settling in


Click on photo to view larger. It's worth it.

The world as my oyster

Why, then the world’s mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open.
— William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor


a pearl grows slowly
around the grain of sand that
is lodged in my heart


Click on photo to view larger. It's worth it.

Fear

it's not that I fear hope
I fear the forgoing
it's not that I fear hate
I fear not knowing

it's not that I fear anger
I fear waiting
it's not that I fear pain
I fear the anticipating

it's not that I fear love
I fear not trying
it's not that I fear death
I fear dying


Click on photo to view larger.