Lotka Reflecting All (from the journal)

Chesapeake City Park

In the lost place,

many moments,

many greetings

from unknown plants, dragonfly,

and skipper who waits

patiently for the camera to open.

All eyes open,

inner eyes, too,

moving moments

shared.

Beauty shared.

New beauty

shared in the lost place.  8-17-15

Unseen waterbird

flies overhead

speaking in her

white water voice.  8-17-15

Wasp taking wood from

the old deck chair—

somewhere a nursery is expanding.  8-17-15

 

Emily

Did you know it then

when the words

touched the paper

that it was your voice,

your strong voice talking?

Rounded open letters letting

thought in, out,

barely touching paper.  8-17-15

Sumi-e

Little girl making peace at her study table.

Wide blue sky reflected in wide blue sea,

a yellow place for feet,

little girl feet.   8-17-15

Cloud-bird

hides in the sky.

From the pine

gray bird looks on.  8-17-15

Sasha in the wild world

with sharks

and Mallory.  8-17-15

Stacatto clouds below the film of cirrus.

Water.

But how?    8-18-15

The perfect lake

shadowed by the perfect woods.

Rabbit lives there.  8-19-15

Sometimes looseness comes,

a way of knowing, dancing in the unknown

emerging between paper and brush,

learning to touch,

to see between light and dark,

all coming to the palest

gray opalescence when dry,

Himalayan lotka reflecting all.   8-19-15

Morning opalescence—

fog, cloud, sea air moisten the upright pines.

Shades of white moving north.  8-20-15

The promise of blue

rising over the bare tree this morning

without gray bird.  8-20-15

The path is full—

beach rose buds, orange hips, green prickly pears,

the turning pines unto themselves.  8-20-15

The woods—old enough

to be dying.

Gray bird’s empty perch.  8-21-15 

Reflections on the soft lake greener

than the calm water

after the night of light and storm.   8-21-15

Where did this air come from that lights

my hair, my breath?

The world above,

the fast moving world of touch and go.  8-21-15

Night Storm

The sky goes all the way up,

peopled with cloud dreams.

And in the dark,

enough depth for light.  8-21-15

Orb weaver’s offspring

on my teacup saucer stepping

through spilled black Indian tea,

looking for a place to hide.  8-21-15

They were going somewhere

all in a rush,

altogether

on the same wing.  8-21-15

Single-winged Samara (from the journal)

Incomplete, Acer?
Single-winged samara spins.
Heavy-headed butterfly,
whole in the light.  5-4-15 

All these days—

how will they be counted

if there are no poems,

no breath revisited?  5-23-15

Cool with a bit of

warmth to the eye,

the sharpness of bird bites.  5-23-15

Tiny, through the green round,

the blue sky,

circled.  5-23-15

Does dragonfly hear

woodpecker’s far knock

in his circle of sun?

White on black, both.

Now, moved to silence.  5-23-15

Come back now to silence

and maples’ new rose leaves

perched over all like sentries

with wings and pointed caps

aloft on air, here

where doors are not closed.  5-23-15

A bit of time—

oak steps through,

marking heart steps,

the dark verticals

moving down.  5-23-15

Side-stepping

to get to the holes between the words,

to the river running of its own accord.  5-24-15

Shenandoah

The perfect place—

air, water,

memories wrapped

and unwrapped.

A thin snake

the thread through all,

facing us with

clear eyes.  5-30-15

The years flow by,

but right here time pools around this

air-bound rock that floats free

under my pen

turning the currents

back around.  5-30-15

Marooned off Lime (from the journal)

It’s a long way I

went to hear your voice, back.

I, wrapped by blue,

self, your self, fire,

your rolling fire voice, embers

moving across me,

a whole place,

without shivers,

mine or yours.  2-10-15

On many levels

it remains—hope,

in all the right colors.  2-11-15

The door opens word by word.

Wren waits on the growing branch.

I wait beside her.  2-12-15

I don’t pursue the hollow ring;

this isn’t my time.

Do you waken to the same horizontal sky,

gray and cream?

My time waits below my breast bone,

tucked under my chin,

the one that lifts to you.  2-14-15

My eye finds it—

the blue through crab apple’s

bare branches.  Sea blue

anchored like my heart.  2-14-15 

Here we are on a slow slide.

There’s too much light and raw sound

for toes to meet,

naked toes,

toe to toe,

on a slow slide

in.  2-18-15

Ragged,

lactuca seeds under snow,

over snow, silent snow.  2-21-15

Coming down straight

with the softest weight,

coalesced dreams gather up white

over the rising night.  2-21-15 

Steady, steady, steady they go

blown through and through with

sideways clouds of broken dust.  2-21-15

Does it hold, the lock,

the golden brown light of spring,

emerging-swelling, breathing with light,

grasping eyes, heart until the moment is fulfilled?

And again and again, you, me,

the space that is ours.  3-1-15

The light is right,

the morning sideways light.

If not for the snow it would fall across

my arms, my eyes, my pen,

that sideways morning light.  3-6-15

It beckons not, the snow.

I stay inside, warm tea,

comforted by lily’s brown,

down-turned leaves that grace the

still-green stems, two unopened buds

pointing to each other.

Gestures of thought unopened,

but conceived and received.  3-6-15

Kalanchoe

Where is the light now,

the curls of light

coming back red off wood,

green off sedum?

Has any made its way here,

and does it cast its own taupe shadow?

Where is the light now?

Is it marooned off lime?  3-6-15

A word, a sigh,

a touch of paper,

the softest paper

ringed with light.  3-7-15

Do you think of me when you move,

making paths through it all?

In my quieter path you are here,

the last snow falling, silent.  3-7-15

  

Water

Maple’s week-long flowers,

abrupt in the soft air.

Now rain, the soft rain

brings down the full color.

Water, colored by air.  4-3-15

Standing in the water,

my feet wet,

your promise,

a pinch of warmth.  4-3-15