snapshots

I saw a photo today
a dragonfly clinging
to a stalk of fern, neatly
hidden in summer fans.

I wonder what artist
sought to secure
her in repose.

I think of you,
how your lens captures
a world I would not know
but for your hands.

Mornings blanketed
beneath ginger mist,
diaphanous film
floating through trees,

a honey bee hovering
over cobalt blooms.
I want to frame

the chrysoprase frog
resting in the corner
of a green window rail
and hang it above our bed.

destination Maggie Valley

I am unfamiliar these days.
Mostly now I stir
before light slants
through slender blinds

The warmth of your body
ebbs with wakefulness
and for a moment I float
between dream and hunger.

Sunrise forms an orb
where splashes of passion
fruit roll over the Rockies,
spill and fill the valleys
in an ardent eastward run.

on seraphim and dragonflies

seraph and dragonfly

together
we are
ten wings
soaring



dragonfly and seraphim

how humble this universe
where even the angels can’t soar
without our earthly smallness
without the wings of a dragonfly



dragonfly to seraph

how vast this heaven
I would not wing
but for your fire



seraphim and dragonfly

alight on the ether
a single wing’s breath
fires the stars
fires divinity



seraph’s fire

emblaze by breath
this fall of stars
it is your light
I sacralize

in spite of weeds

in my backyard
a rose bush thrives
despite the thistle
i have neglected to pull
and the waste that i have
yet to nip off

a rising day meets
slumbering buds still wet
with night’s dew
and though it is early
pink petals unfurl
eager for the heat
of radiant touch

she brings me dragonflies

she comes to me
with wide eyes
wonder-full
and arms outstretched

I have a gift for you
something I found

her delicate hands lift
the amber insect
in a small glass jar

perfectly intact
vellum wings
awkwardly drawn
under its body

sorting clouds

morning came soft
on the summit of restless
sleep and elusive
visions

a conundrum of clouds
crowding the peaks
of Bogus Basin
in dits and dahs

decoding dreams
in blushes of apricot
and touches of plum
something gold is rising
... --- -- . - .... .. -. --. --. --- .-.. -.. .. ... .-. .. ... .. -. --.

blame it on the rain

A cloudburst sweeps
fog from the river,
tinseling the fading day.

Warm drops puddle in cupped
leaves, running rivulets
down her upswept limbs
to pool in her roots.

She waltzes with the wind
a while, then turns
a tango with the tide.

You cannot fault the moon
for reflecting his pleasure
when clouds open and light
falls on a laughing tree.

road to the river

In the rising mist, trees
are bodies bound by distance.

The muffled mirth of water
wrapping stones draws my step
from rutted paths to seek
seclusion pillowed in moss.

Mine are the only feet to mark
beside the tracks of whitetail
to follow along a willowed bank.

Hidden in the fold of grounded
clouds, filtered sunlight glosses
tips of rockripples and hands
reach out to hold the glow.

broken angel

her edges are sharp
but i keep piling blue shards
in my hands, probing shadows
for the sting on my fingers
that brings splinters to light

glass wings are never as strong
as before they were shattered

understanding she will be
forever fractured
i puzzle her together

First stars and wishing wells

First stars and wishing wells 

-a poem for Aysia

 Since the age of three 

she’s been reciting familiar 

rhymes and wishing on stars. 

There’s a fountain in Ghirardelli Square, 

sea turtles and mermaids on rocks 

breastfeeding merinfants, 

where wishes are sunken coins. 

In December she tossed in a dime. 

The backyard is smothered 

by dandelions turning white. 

Last summer, her small hands 

held one out to me, 

Look mommy, a wishing flower! 

She closed her eyes and inhaled, 

 formed a perfect pucker and blew

tiny parachutes into the air. 

I ask, What do you wish for? 

She looks up, her brown eyes earnest 

and whispers, You can’t tell wishes, 

 they won’t come true. 

But I know she wishes 

for no such thing as 

divorce. 

The mower grinds and spits. 

I top one and watch her seeds drift 

off on the wind; breakaway wishes 

destined to be weeds.

settling the dragonfly

settling the dragonfly

She is delicate
on upturned fingertips,
a tentative murmur of
advancing and receding
blue, an iridized whirr
in moon flight.

She seeks an open palm,
thumbs that never press
or pin; hands that consider
her delicate wings.

A home with no walls,
no doors to close.
Love is not a portal.

Photo Snowdrifts

Cold Snap

Smoke from a late fire
smothers the sunrise
under a cranberry harvest;
smells of campfire puffs
on a corduroy brush jacket.

Irrigation ditches aflame
with seeded asparagus,
lick the last from puddle
mud and roll to sleep
under hoary grass.

Two years since that October
and here we are again, me
sitting at your feet trying
to tell you my life in Spanish,
laughing. You’ve been away
and I am out of practice.

As I stand to go, I read the poem
engraved in your granite
headstone and paper leaves swirl
around my feet on a breath
colder than glitter flakes
and black star voids.

Snowdrifts

There’s an unrest in the way
snow reflects the moon tonight,
as though it waits for the whorl,
the deep sweep down the canyon
pushing white carpet into tumbled trips.

Aspen have shivered off
the last of sun-denied color
and the thrust of naked limbs
bears the weight of cratered light.

A whitetail nudges her weary
fawn under a yawn of winter-frocked
pine boughs, ears northward,
eyes skyward, watching the Hunter
notch a diamond-tip.

The nose of night
smells mercury dropping
long before the Rockies speak
a whisper that will be wind.

merciless winter

snow is bitter, even
though it glitters
like silver pennies
in blinding sunlight.

there’s just enough
heat to melt a razor layer
that stabs when broken
not yet enough to absolve
completely.

nothing is beautiful
about this nature.
ice laces the edge
of transparent wings,
there is no reincarnation,
and dragonflies freeze easily.

lingering impressions

I want to trace
the lines in your palm
to where your life
tangles with mine
and mingle for eternity,

smooth with my thumb
the crease in your brow
shadowed by the years
of shared passing,

touch with my lips
the echoes of laughter
etched on your cheek
and flecked in the sun
of your eyes,

open my hand
inside a lazy stream
and catch the ripple
of a dragonfly stealing a kiss
off the face of forever.

cold feet

the fire is warm
but my fingertips have yet to find
assurance in heat
and though I entreat my toes
to stretch toward flame,
they settle for the solace
of neither bite nor burn