The Locking Place

"Ruby under the willow."  Pen and ink with watercolor, 10 x 6" 

Illustration from The Locking Place by Kathy Walden Kaplan and Kate Oliver.   This middle-grade novel will be coming out in January, 2013 from MAB Books. 

Vagaries of Choice (from the journal)

There are no words

for creeper’s fall color—

as rich now as the harvest moon.  10-2-12

Mint tea

the old memory—

Café Central in the rain,

like today.

Wet mocassins on my cold feet.  10-2-12

The long rain.

All the saucers are full,

all the spider webs frosted.  10-3-12

What’s a poem?

A breath full of morning mist

touched by crickets, all the little crickets.  10-3-12

The river runs through the cloud

sitting on the ground, on us,

the finest rain.  10-3-12

On a morning

between summer and fall

crickets go on about it.  10-4-12

Poke condensing to yellow and maroon,

creeper to rose,

the star tree to orange.

All smaller, one color at a time.  10-4-12

Issa Connection (for David Lanoue)

All the single moments

of one  man’s life

blown here—

dark brush marks on paper,

translated for my morning breath.  10-4-12

As pale as moonlight

bladdernut turns

toward sleep.  10-5-12

The old woman closed the door,

refused the book, shut the blinds.

Going slowly by herself, alone.

Let it be like a soap bubble breaking,

all the air free now,

free to be.  10-5-12

Winter came overnight,

cold, on a wind that rests here,

quietly in the rain.  10-7-12

Nothing moves in the wood—

the birds, the leaves, the air—

all are waiting for what comes next.  10-7-12

The old path wrapped in bark,

stiff now, from decisions,

supporting horizontal

vagaries of choice, for light,

with buds as flexible

as breath.   10-8-12

One red leaf

in the dogwood sapling

lights the dark wood.  10-8-12

Across the wood

orange leaves rise

like froth on a green wave.  10-9-12

One wren

in the quiet morning

speaks.  She speaks

about the cold.  10-9-12

A pile of papers

on the square table.

A book almost finished.  10-9-12

A shadow across the wood.

It’s squirrel up on the woodpile,

gaining ground.  10-10-12

Blue jay climbs the maple.

Orange leaves fall with

each step.  10-10-12

The wooded light

moves and doesn’t move

across autumn breath

not yet cold.  10-13-12

This morning light is different from all the others—

this light comes from honeysuckle’s yellow leaves,

from bladdernut’s yellow leaves,

from maple’s yellow leaves.

A new light with only yesterday’s woods

to reflect it.  10-15-12

Red on the salmon

flagstones—

three maple leaves.  10-15-12

Suddenly rain comes

out of a yellow-gray sky.

Everywhere in the woods

squirrels whip their tails.  10-15-12

Poke’s dried berries

float on yellow and maroon branches—

a color we wait all year for.  10-15-12

Star tree glows from inside.

It’s her inner orange

showing through.  10-15-12

It’s a special weight dogwood has,

her orange leaves holding the eye,

the heart.  10-15-12

Under the singing redbird

sassafras shows her

first yellow leaves.  10-17-12

Sunlight poppies ring the art building.

My pockets fill with their

thin brown seeds.  10-17-12

Who will know?

No one will know

when the snowbirds

invert, black for white.  10-17-12

From the far woods

hickory looks in—

green breathing to gold.  10-17-12

Herringboned between summer and fall,

between green and yellow—

the lost wild olive.  10-18-12

The yellow wood

comes closer wearing

blue jay in its lapel.  10-19-12

In the rain—

warmth,

yellow warmth, advancing.

Blue jay

in the bare hickory

tips her tail.  10-19-12

They threw down their shoes

those two little girls did,

running now down the path

with feet flying to the side,

the liquid giggles

coming down.  10-20-12

Curling forward slowly,

along the brown back,

the white tail in a spot of sun

is all I see of the deer, head down,

pawing up the partridge berry.  10-20-12

With the sun from behind,

hickory’s golden leaves

are all we can see.  10-20-12

That color,

that orange dogwood color,

and myrtle’s red

next to the cinnamon wren

smell like dusty maple leaves

curling up on the ground.  10-25-12

Yellow all the way to Baltimore,

the yellow road,

the yellow Eskimo, the bronze,

the stolen one.  10-25-12

Autumn.

The pink Sieboldii’s

open.  10-25-12

Where was I walking

yesterday when I heard catbird?

No catbirds here now.  10-25-12

The great white storm whirled through.

Yet, still here—

the yellow and orange wood.  10-30-12

Peace now.

Behind the green honeysuckle,

hickory’s golden self is alight

under gray light.  10-30-12

Sea green, cinnamon, gold—

autumn’s other colors threaded through

rain-darkened trunks.  10-31-12

The cloud moved.

The light moved.

Hickory’s empty branches are silver now

in the dry raining light.  10-31-12

It’s like painting,

loose, with colors,

and the other things that shine in the light,

in the dark,

moving things that sigh

with enough breath, 

sharing mine. 10-31-12