Misplaced Mountain Laurel

I don’t think I should be here
among the star gazers and velvet
tongued empresses, I am awkward

petals and stiff limbs, my leaves
do not fade and fall, I am never reborn
nor do I return to earth to poke
my way into warmth. Snow settles

on my evergreen sleep, wind rattles
through branches that do not bare.
Yet every summer, when the sun
moves away, pink and white

blossoms remind me I am
more than just a shrub.

The stars are getting high

Ketchum smoke hangs
fog-like, ghosts the limestone
cliffs and mountain mahogany
of Pass Creek Canyon.

I’ve scrambled up to peek
in the small mouth of a cave
above camp and hiked
among pines to taste afternoon
warmth. In the tent, kids
cocoon in hard-play sleep
and blue nylon bags.

Firelight licks the Merlot
in my plastic cup as the haze
lifts and I see Orion’s belt
span a dark delta. The air
is clearing as if zodiacs are
inhaling the burning grass.

Summer Solstice

It’s 4 a.m. and sunlit
grass bobs in the breeze,
tall and summer heavy
where we sprawl,
almost touching.

A masked waxwing darts
through quaking aspen,
chirping as he flits away
on crimson-dipped flight.

Cicada tymbals chatter,
and our laughter
gurgles spring-like
as your gaze reflects
the opulent caramel
of Tiger’s Eye.

And though I am afraid
of waking, I lean
across to kiss you.

closing the miles between

I can’t look at mountains
without wanting you
trekking ahead of me,

leading me to summits
I would not explore alone,
taking me to a world
where only you and I

see the vastness of time
rise to touch eternity
as history spreads
in peaks and valleys.

Western clouds gather
to rumble and spill.
How many thunderstorms
will resound through my pane

with flashes of light
and tremulous echoes
before my heart stops
waiting for you?

Petticoat Peak

A wooden frame stands
on her rocky top
time-gray and warped.
Rusted penny nails hold
cracked boards carved
with names and years
as far away as 1919.

To the east, Salt River’s
snowy peaks are prairie points
binding ground blocks;
fresh plowed brown
and new-growth green
quilted by pivots and roads.

Below us, a dust devil
curls a dirty column
from exposed soil,
winds into oblivion
on a grass border.

Westward, mountain tops
fan across Earth's palm
like a hand of cards
dealt for play and cool
breezes venture fragrant
offerings of sage across
the windswept ridges
of Fish Creek Range.

Stones and Rainbows

Needles of Lodgepole fasten
sheets of charcoal clouds
to the ridgeline of the narrow
canyon between Butte and Helena.

An outburst of hail ricochets off asphalt
and spatters the windshield, slows
our snake along I-15 north and fills
the truck with banging of riotous cymbals.

Caliginous light blurs spring grass
a dusky jade silk as we round a corner
and clouds brush back to watercolor
refracted rays across pine valleys.

where wild cranberries grow

Through a veiled grove
of golden leaves quaking
on an autumn whisper,

there is a valley where clear
springs spill over a rim
of granite into a pooled

reflection of shivering
moon, where wild blueberry
and fireweed flame a scarlet

edge for evergreens, and night
lights weave the tarp of stars
with jade and rose auroras.

Here, the step of Mother Earth
is a pliant tumble of tundra.

Sunday Inspirations

It’s 5 a.m. and I’m awake
listening to your breath come
in deep-dream swells, the wind
singing in the chimes outside,

and the muffled rumble of metal wheels
pulled along iron tracks punctuated
by the caution-cry of crossing.

I shift and you stir enough to curl
your fingers over the curve of my shoulder
and my thoughts drift to an image

of your hands curled around ski poles,
the smooth shift and glide of your legs
propelling thin skis, the solid silhouette
of your body against the stark snow,

and the way you smile just before we kiss.
How you stopped to listen to birds
chattering in willows along Pebble Creek
and said you prefer comfortable quiet, too.

Today we'll ski in a cathedral of cottonwoods
you'll show me where hawks swooped down
with outstretched wings and left
feathered angels in the snow.

to define missing

You fill the idle minutes
and margins of calendar days
crowded with city traffic,
meetings, and company clatter.

Images of the tracks we left
in melting snow and juniper
pressed against mountain
mahogany fill the space
between lines of marketing copy
and attachments waiting for production.

No matter the direction my day spins,
you are north in the compass of drifting
thoughts, the trembling exhalation
of breath I pull deeply into me
when the air of your absence
condenses into a pressing mist.

McGown Peak

At midday she smolders
terra cotta, a red saw blade
rising from Stanley Lake,
a ragged granite boundary.

Even in August
when meadows bloom
purple Penstemon
and ginger Castilleja,

snow clings
to the deep gullies
and the Finger of Fate
is solid, enduring
and cold.

Capella Street, Star

My next house will be in the country,
not against some crowded suburb
sidewalk where all the roads are named
for what shines in our galaxy.

I hear angry voices down dark streets
and I want to shut more doors, more
windows, more ears. On heated nights
when the past comes muffled
through my pane,

I ache for the flutter
of air in aspen green.

Dreams in Half-Light

In the space between twilight
and deep sleep, leaves flutter
against the ripstop roof
and sweet wild rose slips
in the zippered door;
draws us out to the night.

A silver scar traces the face
of the dusky mountain;
slices through a beard
of sage and juniper
littered with cockle burrs
that tangle in our laces
and cling to our hem
as we clutch for a foothold
in the sliding shale.

We summit on a silhouette
of limestone lip haloed
in chalk moon and watch
owls traverse the tattered ridge.

dragonfly totems

a needle pierces apple seeds,
threads a segmented body
on red string; highlights
painted on vellum
faux iridescent wings,
mocks the nymph that climbs
colored sand and spreads wet
wings over a beached nautilus,
waits for the transformation
that gives her the strength to fly.
Geometric eyes search the periphery
of this second birth to land
filled with strange quarks
as spermatozoid waves
below the concentric shudder
of meniscus tapped by a Meadowhawk
tying a never ending knot.

**************************************
Challenge poem:
with these components write a mandala poem

apple seeds
colored sand
quarks
string
never ending knot

and as well,
adding in to the poem
all of the following words:

concentric
transformation
spermatozoid
geometric
nautilus
periphery
highlights

Gretel’s empty pockets

the sun was licking
honey from your hair
and in the deep pool
your stirring fingers
spun a glittering globe

not floating
but settling
and you do it
over and over
stirring,
waiting,

settling,

and I was pocketing
white stones
something to
remember
when all around
you sand glittered.

I wonder if on moon
bathed nights, you’ search
for what was dropped
for a glow path
to bring you back
to a honey-sated sun.

Hansel,
I should have given you
a wing-bone
to poke through the bars
of what cages you,

but now I am convinced,
the witch had eaten
what heart you had.

******original******

the sun was licking
honey from your hair
and in the deep pool
your stirring fingers
lifted a glittering globe
snow-like

this was not floating
but settling
and you do it
over and over
stirring,
waiting,

settling,
and there I was pocketing
white stones to take home,
something to remember
that day when all around
you sand glittered.

I wonder if on some moon
bathed night, you’ll search
for what was dropped
along the way, for a glow
path to bring you back
to a honey-sated sun.

Hansel,
I should have given you a wing
bone to poke through the bars
of what cages you,
but now I am convinced,
the witch had eaten
what heart you had.

Kassi's last dance

he hates driving in the rain
says it reminds him
of air-brushed birds

a small white car and pieces
of a prom dress ragging
out of shattered glass
like a dove’s broken wing

how they pulled her out
through holes cut in the roof
blood sweating from the leaves
of the pink corsage pinned over her heart

he told me for weeks
his dreams had been filled
with poppies and crows

hot springs

We first lay down among flowers.
A moon flower in your hand
scents a course across my lips

to hips that mock the splay
of petals, your mouth, a night
moth following pollen fortune.

Gravity abandons and we rise,
climbing the cusp of Venus
to a heaven pillowed
in the wings of Pleiades.

Thighs interlaced, we dive
and tumble earthward.
Star jeweled, our bodies

facets of a spinning pavilion
plunge into the misty veil
of Loftus Springs where nature’s heat

slides over an arc of rock
and ripples recite
the magnitude of our waves.

************************
Author's Note:
This poem was written for a poetry challenge with the following parameters:

Write an erotic poem about making love in water that begins with the following first line and uses all of the following five nouns and five verbs.

We first lay down among flowers.

thighs
pavilion
hand
fortune
bodies

mock
pillowed
recite
jeweled
abandons

Thanks to Zen Master Ikkyu for the word list and first line.

swallowing the sun

Sparrows forage through thorns
for a taste of clustered sun,
morning glitters a crystal
frost etching the edge
of a dragon-wing leaf.

Winter’s chill shifts as January
dives into lesser degrees
and gathered sticks hold
a promise of fervent heat.

May will plait crowns
for fairies and angels
who dance night blessings
among evergreen amulets.

But tonight, we’ll drift
a snowfall moon.
Day is a hawthorn berry
swallowed.

drunken fingers

she is trying to unlock him
through a grape haze,
but her hands fumble at the keys
and the backspace is littered
with the letters she trips over

she flattens her hand
over the base of the Waterford
stem on the counter and dips
her fingers in the bowl of merlot

pinning the glass in place,
she traces the rim with her wet
index leisurely, decisively until
the crystal sings.